


Rainbow Dorm

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Anti-college AU, Bullying, Closet!Erik, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Humour, M/M, Multi, Nerdy!Tony is the best Tony, Slash, awkward smut, it's almost hilarious, not even close to a College AU, so un college AU like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:25:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 49,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Oh for fuck’s sake, Rainbow dorm? Really? Could someone just kill him now, life seriously wasn’t worth living.<br/>Especially if you had just been branded campus Gay Lord of Rainbow Dorm." </p><p>Tony starts college being humiliated and teased after a photo of him kissing another boy is leaked around school. At first, he thinks that this is the end and that he will have to live with the pain forever. But then again, perhaps all it takes a little positive thinking to change the whole situation around. Cue Rainbow Dorm, a friendly, non-judgemental atmosphere made for students who've been told they're different. Open for all, strictly excludes anyone in the football team. </p><p>Hope to see you there!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dat Faggy Tony

It all started when the picture that was never meant to exist was sent to Sharon Carter; who sent it to her best friend Janet Van Dyne who then sent it to her best friend Wanda Maximoff who then sent it to her boyfriend Johann Schmidt. Who sent it to everyone in the student body.

In retrospect, Tony should have expected it. He’d learned the hard way that unless you’re the coolest kid in school, you work the fuck in or get the fuck out. But then again, there was nothing wrong with a little hope, right?  He was sure that College would be a new start. It was a new place, he was a new Tony with better hair, better clothes and no braces (and a tiny bit of muscle too). Oh, and no heart breaking sleazy bag of dicks boyfriend holding him down. Nope, there was nothing that would stop him this year.

That was before he found out Johann Schmidt and the rest of the Jerk Squad were also attending SHIELD University.

Tony knew he was fucked. And not in a good way (though Rogers’ ass was looking pretty fine in those 3 sizes too small Levis).

But hey, maybe they’d lay off him this year. Maybe they’d finally realise what a valuable asset he was to the team. Maybe.

But it seemed his fate was sealed, and so he was greeted on the first day of term with pictures of him kissing Loki pinned up in literally every public area. Even in the bathrooms.

“Hey look it’s faggy Tony” He felt a slap on the back of his head as Erik Lehnsherr walked by, his arm around a giggling slim blonde. Probably Emma Frost. Those breasts were legendary on campus. But that wasn’t something he was supposed to say, was it?

“Oi faggot, who’re you taking up the ass today?” That was _terrible_. If they were going to insult him, the least they could do is have some freaking class.

Tony pushed past another throng of people and stupid insults, finally managing to get somewhere vaguely near the classroom entrance when he noticed the piercing glare of Johann Schmidt behind him. Seriously, that guy could be the German Edward Cullen…or the Austrian one…Tony was like 80% sure he was from one of those areas in Europe. He decided to ignore the prick, but that was when Rogers came into view. Ah, Steve Rogers. The muscle miracle, teen scrawn turned to brawn. He was the most beautiful soul God had ever bestowed onto this planet. And also, amazingly, completely out of Tony’s league. And about 150% straight. It came with being on the football team, it was like a given that those guys were out of reach. For both nerdy girls and boys.

He could just stare at Rogers all day if he didn’t remember that this wasn’t the perfect life and that he had indeed just been humiliated in front of the student body. 

Well, looks like his ideas of regeneration had been well and truly dumped. It was time to start skipping class.

\--

“Tony where the _hell_ were you today! It was the first day, First day of term and you decide to skip it?!” Pepper Potts, a very angry Pepper Potts, burst in through the front door of hers, Rhodey’s and Tony’s shared house. Well, they called it a dorm for short, but it really was more of a house.

“Well Pepper, in case your narrow mind didn’t notice, I was sort of the subject of complete damnation today.”

She bowed her head a little, as she did when she was concerned, and walked over to where Tony had spent much of the day eating ice cream and congealing with the couch.

“Tony…I saw what they did. But you can’t let that get to you. This isn’t Junior High anymore, why would anyone give a crap what stupid Johann Shit says hmm? This is about you and your life, and I don’t think you should let them dictate that for you.” And that, boys and girls, is why Pepper was head of the politics society. Ace bullshitting that sounded like it had some meaning to it.

“Sure sure, you’re right. I’ll go in tomorrow, okay?” He gave her a weak smile before continuing to devour the rest of his cookie dough ice cream just as the end of _“The Return of the King"_ came on. No one could ever pass up on a good Lord of the Rings marathon.

Maybe Pepper was right, tomorrow was a new day and a fresh start, and yeah who cares what Johann said today. By tomorrow, they would all have forgotten about it. And if Frodo could destroy the ring without the assistance of a decent robot, he could face those idiots.

\--

Pepper was wrong. Tony was pissed. And Frodo was just lucky. He’d been called a fag exactly 22.5 times now-the .5 being the time he decided it was a good idea to sock Johnny Storm in the face. The kid really was all bark and no bite because he had a nosebleed about two seconds later. And Tony had hit his jaw.

At lunch, he’d been very conveniently pelted with other people’s lunches. Just what he needed, his mom had always told him he was getting thin. The only highlight of the day was when Rogers bumped into him in the hallway, breathed in that adorable flustered way he had, looked at Tony for precisely 3.5 seconds, and then walked off to meet Erik in the library. It was the most romantic moment Tony had ever had. And he’d been crushing on this kid since 7th grade (but shh, tis a secret!).

He really didn’t think things could get much worse after that. Clearly, his calculations were once again wrong as he was greeted with the lovely sight of his house pelted with rainbow spray paint-including the large “GAY” lettering someone had very un-artistically done.

Just as he was contemplating how on earth he would get this down, some douchebag walked past him with a snicker.

“Hey look it’s the Gay lord of rainbow dorm.”

“Rainbow what?”

“Rainbow dorm, cozy name for your little gay bar over here.” The kid was beside himself with laughter. Oh for fuck’s sake, Rainbow dorm? Really? Uh could someone just kill him now, life seriously wasn’t worth living.

Especially if you had just been branded campus Gay Lord of Rainbow Dorm.

 


	2. The Judgement-Free zone

"And that's how we find the photo momentum...Mr.Stark if you would be so kind as to grace the class with your no doubt prominent presence it would be most beneficial.” It had been a week since Semester had officially started, and the rumours about Tony Stark had already reached the teachers. Well, it was kind of hard to miss when the picture was blown up and stuck everywhere. Coulson felt bad for him, but there was a strict boundary between students and teachers, and Coulson wasn't one for breaking the rules. Well, at least he could ensure the boy got a decent education.

Tony glared at the professor's back as the teacher went back to drawing some lame formula he already knew on the board. Was he blind or did he just choose to turn a blind eye to the very obvious pile of paper building up on his desk?!

Just as he started to concentrate, a particularly large sample appeared in front of him which turned out to be a very graphic drawing of his mouth around something vaguely resembling a penis. He scrunched it up and rolled his eyes, just to show the little shit he clearly couldn’t care less. If they’re so interested in art maybe they should have taken that instead of Quantum Physics.

 Over lunch, his hair was once again used as target practice for the football team, with various bits of food lodging themselves in his messy spiked-including a particularly sticky blob of mayonaissey lettuce.After about 20 minutes, he tried to convince himself he preferred this, a quiet peaceful and solitary lunch. Well half solitary, Rhodey had decided to throw himself in the line of food fire.  
"Hey Tony...you okay?"  
"Oh yeah, this ketchup sculpting gel is really effective. "  
Rhodey rolled his eyes and took the seat, gently placing a tray up to stop himself getting pelted by burger.  
"Tony...You know you're not alone in this okay man? We're here for you..."  
"Are you sure you want to be? I mean look at the shit we’re going through...do you really want this?"  
"We're your best friends Tony...we stand together, we fall together...y'know, the whole works."  
He nodded, a small lump forming in his throat. The look on Rhodey’s face said it all, and Tony felt even worse because he knew how much the other boy had wanted to be in the football team-rejected purely because of Tony’s bad reputation. He looked away, careful not to show any emotion.  
"Thanks buddy...now let's can the emotional shit okay?" He laughed and cursed himself at how shaky it sounded. Rhodey just smiled, and he knew that they would leave it at that.

  
The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, a saving grace compared to the hell like week he'd just been through. His house was still covered in graffiti, but Pepper-bless her, had covered the "Gay" part in cool hippie patterns. It made him smile every time he walked home. He sighed happily at the familiar feeling of a judgement-free environment, looking forward to an evening of relaxation.

But like most things in his life, his night of ice cream bonding had just begun when a loud knock resonated through the house.

  
"Tony! Get the door!” Pepper yelled from her room.

  
Tony rolled his eyes with a scowl. "Why?!"

  
"BECAUSE IM IN THE SHOWER!"

  
"Get Rhodey to do it!"

  
"He's in the bathroom!"

  
Tony didn't even want to know how she knew that. With a loud sigh he trudged downstairs and opened the door. He was promptly punched on the face.  
 "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I thought no one was coming so I knocked again and then you opened the door and-dude are you okay?"  
Tony shook his head as he felt the trickle of blood edit his nose.  
"Yeah fine-I'm used to it. " he rolled up the end of his shirt and stuck it to his nose, finally getting up to have a good look at his potential attacker.  In front of him stood a short-ish girl with curly black hair and thick glasses. She was swimming in an overgrown plaid shirt covering her Korn t shirt, tucked into ripped jeans and shabby converses.  
"I'm Darcy-philosophy minor, nice to meet'cha!"  
"Tony Stark-what do you want?"  
"This is rainbow dorm right? "  
"Uhh...sure?"  
"Awesome, you got any free rooms going? "  
"Uh yeah...there's no rent..."  
Darcy smiled and ran down the corridor. "JANE HE SAID YES!"  
This was followed by a loud crash as the person Tony guessed was Jane whooped. Needless to say, he was extremely worried.  
"Wait wait wait you want to move in…here?"  
Darcy appeared again with another girl next to her, each bringing a large suitcase in tow.  
"Hell yeah! We figured we'd be more accepted y'know!"  
"Darcy don't freak him out we don't have many options left...I'm Jane by the way, Jane Foster. Astrophysics first year." She offered her hand with an eager smile, it soon dimming when she saw the state of Tony’s face.  
"Darcy what did you do!"  
"Nothing! It was totally unintentional."  
Jane rushed over and gently nursed Tony’s nose. "We were kicked out of our last dorm because Darcy over here likes being a bit too public about her personal views."  
"What a surprise.”

Darcy shrugged with an easy smile as Tony shook Jane's hand. "Nothing wrong with being proud. Just cuz you're straight as a saint." Jane shook her head, patting Tony gently as she went back to her suitcase. "It's stopped bleeding now, I think you'll live."

"Thanks, never thought I'd be nursed by an Astrophysicist. "  
"I know a little first aid too."  
"Hey dude, your science chat is thrilling and all but it's cold and I'm not wearing a bra so could we leave the flirting to later?”

Tony laughed and showed them in. He liked them already.

“Tony who was at the door-oh, hello.” Pepper walked in, only clad in a pair of skimpy shorts and Rhodey’s button down. Those two had a creepy obsession with sharing clothes.

“Hey there! I’m Darcy, this is Jane. We’re moving in here.”

Pepper nodded with a small quirk of her eyebrow. “And you’re doing this because you want to? I’m not going to find out your spies for Schmidt or something am I?”

“Pepper!”

“What? I just want to check.”

“Nah it’s cool bro, yeah we hate Schmidt, total asshole.”

“Yes, he’s a real dick.” Jane agreed as they finally hauled the two cases in.

“He’s always been that way, we went to his high school.” Pepper said, running her hands through her hair. “Let me show you where you’re going to sleep. It’s just this way.” She made to grab one of the suitcases when Jane insisted she and Darcy could manage, turning into a heatededly polite argument before they agreed to help each other up the stairs.

Rhodey chose that moment to walk into the living room, frowning at the sudden crowd and commotion.

“…when did we inherit chicks?”

“When I became the hottest piece of ass on campus.”

Rhodey just gave him a look as if to say “are you serious?”.

“They wanted to live in a judgement free zone that accepted their sexual preferences.”

"Is that what we’ve become now? A place for people who feel different to “fit in”?”

Tony started to laugh and then paused. That wasn’t a bad idea. He knew he wasn’t the only outsider in the year. And surely there were others who felt isolated, segregated or cut off by society. They needed a place to feel safe too, and if they weren’t getting it where they were now, this was a place they would be able to go to.

He smiled, an idea forming in his mind, instigating a very alarmed look from Rhodey.

Operation Rainbow Dorm was now in action. 


	3. Erik rhymes with Dick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this chapter takes quite a different turn compared to the last two. It's mostly from Steve, Bucky and Sam's point of view and therefore not as Rainbow Dorm oriented. There'll be a few chapters like this just so you get the feel of both sides :)

It was one of those lazy, peaceful afternoons and by some fluke Bucky, Steve and Sam had gotten the afternoon to themselves to enjoy the winter sun. They were sprawled by the lake, each minding their own business when Bucky decided it was time for some in-depth guy talk.

“Hey Steve, ever think of getting a girlfriend?”

Steve looked up from the interesting "University Press Economics" book he was reading, featuring the epic showdown of Catwoman and Harley Quinn.

“…uhm…not really?”

“Aw come on Steve, there’s gotta be _someone_ you have your eye on.”

Steve smiled and looked away with a small flush. _Yeah I have my eye on someone, but none of you are going to like it._

“What about that red one-Sharon?”

“Sharon Carter-yeah, what about her Steve?” Sam wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive way as Steve just shook his head.

“Her sister’s hot-Betty was it? Or Penny?”

“Peggy.” Even Steve had to admit she was beautiful. But most definitely not his speed. _Or style_ , he added in his head.

“Yeah her! Janet’s pretty fly too.”

“Janet’s with Hank.” Bucky said, idly making symmetrical piles of grass on Sam’s leg.

“What?! Since when?”  Steve had never been one for gossip, but when you were part of the “in-gang” you kinda had to know what was going on.

“Since like last week dude where’ve you been!”

“Studying, unlike you.”

Bucky held up his hands “Not my fault my old man made sign up for “Eh-co-now-micks”” He made a sour face and flopped back into the grass.

“Well at least you’re not doing Advanced Calculus. Hell I don’t even know what a calculus is-some kinda cloud?” Sam looked up to the sky as if it held some sort of divine answer.

“No dude it’s math…”

“Well how would I know I only got an A once and it was in Kindergarten!”

“How did you even get in here?”

“Skillz…man I wanted to do classical civilization.” Sam said it in a jokey way, but they could both tell he really meant it.

Steve shook his head sadly. All three of them had only gotten in to SHIELD university on football scholarships. Their parents had chosen their subjects for them and that was that, there was no further discussion to be had. If his father found out his true feelings…well, he didn’t even want to begin to imagine the consequences. The same could be said for Bucky and Sam. Despite their aloof natures, each one of them had an astronomical expectation they could only hope to someday fulfil.  

The trio sat in silence, absorbed in their no doubt similar thoughts when Steve decided it might be a good idea to check the time.

“Oh crap! Guys we were supposed to meet Erik in the library 10 minutes ago!”

“Chill Steve, it’s just Erik. I’d say ten minutes without Erik is ten minutes of time well spent.” Bucky mumbled from his bed of grass. Sam nodded in agreement. Erik was cool and all…but there was a side to him that no one wanted to see. More often than not it had been Sam, Bucky and Steve subjected to _that_ side.

After a few minutes of shuffling, they did finally find themselves on the way to the library, Sam deciding to “take in the scenery” as they went. Basically an excuse to walk really slowly. They were nearing the steps leading to the grand building when something-well, more likely some _one_ came tumbling down them. Steve was about to go catch the kid but stopped when the body seemed to be rolling straight for their direction. They froze, no one seemed to move as the kid continued to tumble, and about 30 seconds later, Charles Xavier was deposited at Steve, Bucky and Sam’s feet.

His glasses had completely cracked, and in the process of his fall the shards had cut into his skin. His messy brown hair had completely covered his face, but they could just make out the trickle of blood from a gash on his forehead. He wasn’t moving either.

Sam crouched down, placing his ear above Charles’ mouth whilst Bucky checked his pulse. People were gathering around the scene, but Steve pushed them away, trying to give Charles some privacy. Even so, his crowd shifting method wasn’t even half as effective as Erik’s. Steve watched people literally get thrown onto the floor when the boy entered the ring of students. Bucky gently tapped Steve’s leg as Charles had opened his eyes now, large blue irises wet with tears.

“That’ll teach you to touch me you creepy fag! Stay away from me or else I’ll have to teach you another lesson.” He sneered with a horribly twisted smirk in place. “You’re lucky them guys are so nice Xavier, or else we’d have all had your hide by now.”  

“Well judging by your methods I think it’s you who needs the lesson Erik.” Everyone turned their heads to the sound of the new voice just as Tony Stark entered the ring, flanked by his best friends James Rhodes and Virginia Potts.

Steve was cheering inside, happy that someone with at least a little moral sense had arrived..  Erik smirked, walking over to where Tony was standing.

“Oh really? And you’re going to teach me huh Gaylord?”

Tony shrugged, hard glare in place. “If that’s what it takes.”

The two boys were staring directly at each other now, tall and lanky Tony versus muscular and broad Erik. It was clear who would win if they got into a fight. Steve just hoped Erik wouldn’t be too harsh on the guy. He looked down and met Bucky and Sam’s worried stares. They all knew what Erik was capable of. They just hoped they wouldn’t have to clean up after him again. It was an unsaid agreement, if things got bad, they would have to step in, even at the cost of their reputations.

It was now pin-drop silence aside from Charles’ wheezing with Tony and Erik still staring at each other. They were expecting a fight to break out any moment as the atmosphere started to build. But instead (and almost fortunately) the law arrived.

“This is not a social gathering! Your parents’re paying good money for you to live here and get educated, not have campus staring contests! Now get yo asses back into class!” The students rapidly dispersed as Dean Nick Fury walked onto the scene, just leaving Tony and Erik, now facing away from each other whilst Steve, Sam and Bucky were gently helping Charles up.

“Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on here or will I have to find out for myself?!”

No one made a move to offer any information as they continued to stand in silence.

“Alright let’s try it another way, either one of you motherfuckers tells me what the hell is going on or else I call all your daddies up and ask them to find out for me.” That seemed to strike a common chord as their gazes all turned to one of terror. Charles coughed weakly, spitting out some blood as he did.

“Uhm, Dean Fury…sir…Charles was just exiting the library when he fell down the stairs. That’s what we saw, honest” Bucky said, giving Erik a contemptuous glare as he did.

“Yeah, we helped him up after he fell.” Sam and Steve nodded in agreement.

“He fell. His face is covered in shit and you expect me to believe that he just _fell_.”

They nodded in unison. “Honest sir, we didn’t see anything else.”

“And you, Mr Stark, you seem to be the centre of all attention these days. Did you also see him _fall_?”

“When I arrived he was already on the floor being helped up by those three” Tony said in monotone, his eyes never leaving Erik’s.

“And you, Mr Lehnsherr, with your generally pacifist attitude, did Charles just fall?”

“Yes Sir. I watched the whole thing. I tried to stop him from falling but…he’s just so clumsy it couldn’t be helped.”

Charles sat through the whole thing in silence, fuming and cursing his weak state.

“Well gentleman, it seems we have a consensus. Stark, Lehnsherr-get out of here, Wilson, Barnes get back in class and Rogers…for god’s sake get that poor boy some medical attention. Mr Xavier and I will talk later.” He left with a swish of his long coat, walking back to the main building. Erik walked away in silence-whether it was out of embarrassment or anger was yet to be revealed.

Tony ran over and carefully checked Charles’ face. “Geez what did he do to you…” He carefully used the edge of his shirt to take off the shards of glass. Steve joined him, extracting each part of the glasses off his face.

“God what a dick…”

“He’s always been that way.” Bucky said from where he and Sam were bandaging the cut.

Tony laughed, “Are you even allowed to say that about a fellow bro?”

“Hey we may be dicks, but at least we’re dicks with standards.” Tony laughed, well that he could agree with.

“Well except for Golden American Dream over here.” Sam said, poking Steve’s head gently. Charles wheezed a little in what they hoped was laugh.

Steve looked away, a little embarrassed. “Shut up….” He said, as they finally finished repairing Charles’ face.

“Well it was nice of you to help him, are you sure Schmidt isn’t going to whip you or chain you up for helping us “fags”?”

“You’re people too, I don’t see what the big fuss is about. The only difference between you and him is that he prefers girls and you-well, I assume, you don’t. How hard is that?” Steve said, all the while calmly examining Charles’ face. The other three were awe-struck, unsure of what to say. The silence was broken when Charles’ finally rasped something that vaguely sounded like “water” and Sam was running off into the building, Bucky following leaving Steve and the still frozen Tony alone.

“So I’m guessing you…don’t care about that kinda stuff?”

“No, it just annoys me to be honest. I wish everyone would just…look above the differences. Surely the basis of a good friendship is personality, not sexual preference?”

Tony nodded just as the other two returned, feeding Charles.

“T-thanks guys, sorry to cause so much trouble.” He said a little shyly. 

“No problem buddy, it’s not your fault Erik is a douchebag.”

“Yeah, and if he ever gives you any more trouble, you come to us okay?” Sam and Bucky placed a hand on each one of the boy’s bony shoulders, giving him re-assuring smiles. Steve gave the boy a light air hug before helping him up.

“Shit Steve practice is in  5 minutes Schmidt is going to tan our hides!” Sam grabbed Bucky’s arm and started to leg it back to the main building. “Sorry we couldn’t stay dudes!”

Steve laughed and nodded at them both. “See you around.” He gave a small salute before running to join Sam and Bucky. It was a glorious view. Because the sun was..y’know, reflecting of his hair.

“Did we just make friends with Jocks?” Charles said, watching the boys run off into the distance.

“….I think we just did…”

Charles hummed with a little nod, gently rubbing his forehead whilst Tony looked on with a wistful smile on his face.

“Uh Tony…sorry to interrupt your reflective observation but I do require some medical assistance…”

“Oh shit! Yeah yeah of course I’ll introduce you to Jane-she’s our astrophysicist nurse. And if you’re that keen, we’ll let ya stay.”

“W-what? Really? You’d give me a room?”

“Sure! No rent, just pay for your food and your shit.”  Tony looped his arm around Charles’ shoulder and led him back to Rainbow Dorm. It wasn’t nearly the amount he’d anticipated to have inherited by now, but one was certainly a start. 

[AN: Is it weird this chapter sort of made me want to ship Charles and Tony??]


	4. Honey have you met the kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter is a bridging the gap chapter. Next chapter we'll see some more action.  
> Quick question-and please, I need you to answer this, if you like this fanfic, would you still read it if I was to change the rating and add a smut scene? Thank you.

Johann Schmidt was standing in his bedroom, admiring the body he'd spent years building up. With a twist of his head, veins would bulge from his neck from the strain of the muscle. He rolled his shoulder, making the "Deutscher Stahl" tattoo ripple on his back, as well as making the tentacles of his red skull seemingly shake. His family emblem-a symbol of strength. 

"Gunther...who is the most powerful man in the student body?" 

"You are, Johann." He smiled at his faithful servant-uh, Friend. Always ready to support him. 

"Exactly. But Gunther, my dear Gunther,” He said, tilting his head to the side, stretching the bulging veins in his neck. “I fear we have some competition, from this "rainbow dorm" Not notably strong competition, but competition nonetheless."  
  
“I agree. Something must be done.”  
  
“Yes Gunther, we do not tolerate competition do we?”  
  
“No, we do not.”  
  
"And what do we do with our competition?"  
  
Gunther’s lips spread into a devilish grin, as he spoke with relish. "We pulverize them."

 

\--

  
Tony sighed happily as he woke up in his own bed for the first time in about week. It'd been a hellish one too-filled with long, research filled nights at the labs.  He'd been so busy he'd barely spent anytime at home, leaving most of the house care to Pepper and Rhodey. He smiled as he made his way into the shower, just as the smell of fresh eggs filled his nose. All was peaceful, and he felt the relief of being able to go back to his usual regular classes. Mixed with a little bit of dread, but that was a given. 

When he finished his long and relaxing shower, he decided to stretch on the bath mat, releasing all the tension from his muscles. But, as was typical of college life, there was always an interruption. 

  
"TONY WE'RE OUT OF BREAD!" Pepper called, sighing at the lack of food in their shared kitchen.

 Tony sighed and made his way down to the kitchen,  towel around his neck, superman bathrobe tied over his lithe body. Who needs fucking dignity?!

"I bought two loaves yesterday!"   
  
"I know and now they're gone." She said, taking out an industrial sized pan for the eggs.  
  
Tony stared at the empty bread bin, only a few crumbs and Darcy’s 3 week old mouldy sandwhich left in it. He vaguely remember Jane mentioning its presence being for scientific research and that was a-okay in his books.

  
"but...how do 5 people finish TWO family sized loaves?!"  
  
  
"Five?! Oh Tony, where have you been the past week?”  
  
“I had to work overtime at the lab Pep you know that! oh by the way do you know who’s stealing the shampoo?”  
  
Pepper stared at him.  
  
"What?" She pointed in the direction of the very noisy dining room, shaking her head as she began cracking the eggs. Tony walked in, a little scared as to what he would find.  
Upon entrance, expecting only to see Rhodey, Jane, Darcy and Charles, he was met with the sight of 5 new people, all in their pjs, who he did not remember seeing before.  
  
  
"Morning sunshine! We saved you a seat!" Darcy waved him over. He stared at the new faces, puzzled as to their presence. They all looked up, their sharp gazes aimed directly at him and Tony feared for the worst. He knew Pepper would sympathise with the Goth Society.  
  
  
"Who are you and when did you get here?" There were three girls and two boys, and he only recognised one of them. “You, front and centre.” He pointed at the brunette on his immediate left, just as Charles and Rhodey began a polite-ness battle for the last piece of Nutella toast.  
  
  
"Maria Murdock, Biochemistry major." She nodded in Tonys direction, solemn and proper. She was pale, with straight brown hair and a serious expression. Tony couldn't see her eyes as they were covered completely by dark sunglasses. Why on earth one would find the need to wear sunglasses indoors he would never understand.   
The girl next to her smiled and waved. She was gorgeous with tanned skin, long black hair and brown eyes. "Elektra Natchios, Oriental Studies!"  
Tony smiled and gave her a little wink, but this only instigated a death glare from Maria and-okay she was holding a knife. Clearly someone had been claimed.  
  
He then focused his attention on the Deathly red head directly opposite him. She was very pretty, but in a “touch me and I’ll kill you” sort of way.  
  
“Natasha Romanov, Law and legal studies.” She and Maria was scarily similar. Tony’s junk did not feel safe in their presence. And not in the sexy way.  
  
He swiftly moved onto the boys next to her, the first was a muscly guy with spiky dark blonde hair and an awesome set of shades. The second was a brunette resting on his shoulder, hidden behind the latest copy of “New Scientist”.  
  
“Clint Barton, Classical Literature.” He said with a grin.  
  
“Bruce Banner-I’m in your class.” The brunette got up with a sheepish smile. Tony remembers him-he’s the kid who always looks like he’s about to fall asleep.  
  
Geez, a week passes and five news people decide to turn up? He needed to be more observant.  
  
“Well uh…it’s a pleasure to welcome you all to Rainbow dorm. Just in case you didn’t know, I’m the cool one who gets into trouble and stuff so come to me for your crack, Rhodey is the goody two shoes who’ll wake you up in the morning and Pepper is the mother hen. Charles is our baby.”  
  
Clint snorted and Natasha broke face just for a brief smile. Even Maria made a noise that vaguely resembled a chuckle. Tony figured these new additions weren’t bad. If a little...startling.  
  
“This is all very touching and I’m sure you’ll all feel very welcome here in our humble home but some of us have class to go to and only three people can shower at once!” The reaction as instant as everyone scrambled to get upstairs to use the shower. Just as Darcy left Tony thought he could catch the scent of his lynx shampoo from her hair. Well, at least he knew who was stealing it.  
  
Tony finally ambled up after finishing his toast, slipping his arms around Pepper’s shoulder. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”  
  
She smiled, “Yeah…it really is. I feel happy that we’re actually doing something, you know? We’re helping people. We’re making their lives better. I knew your heart was in the right place.”  
  
“Oh god only you would come up with that.”  
  
“Perks of having a motivational Buddhist calendar!” Tony groaned and walked back to his bedroom. Time to get ready for class.  
  
As he made his way through the corridor, he carefully curled into himself. Just because he may have sort of stood up to Erik Lensherr and looked freaking epic whilst doing it, didn’t mean anything was going to change. Besides the fact he inherited 5 new people. But instead, as he went through the hallway, people would let him pass. No one clobbered him, or told him something unfriendly. It was an unbelievable change.  
  
That was when he started to hear the conversations.  
  
“Oh my god did you see!? That’s Tony Stark from Rainbow Dorm!”  
  
“OMG Rainbow Dorm? Suzy said that it’s totally amazing in there.”  
  
“No way I heard that they have parties every night.”  
  
At first he was in awe. Then he passed by a gang where Darcy was passionately describing the things that most certainly did /not/ go on in rainbow dorm. So that was where his new found celebrity status had come from. He felt like Harry Potter.  
  
It was at lunch that he realised all this fame may not be as good a sign as he thought. They took up three tables now, with him, Pepper, Rhodey and Charles sitting as the heads of the table. He could practically feel the burn of the two eyes glaring at him as he carefully looked over the table of the football team. Johann Schmidt, Gunther Schneider and Erik Lehnsherr all had their harsh and angry gazes directly aimed at him. He decided just to give them a nice smile in return to show that there were no hard feelings. Instead, the recipient of his smile turned out to be Steve who beamed at him and grinned wide, giving everyone a lovely view of his perfect white teeth.

Because sometimes all it takes is a little smile from someone you like to make you feel better and think, hey the future's going to be okay. 

And sometimes the football team still like to use your hair as taco aiming ground. He supposed some things never changed. 

But in other news, it seemed Operation Rainbow Dorm was starting to be a success. 

 


	5. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so some of you may/may not have seen the comment about how my story is inaccurate. And I apologise for that. But I want to remind you that this story is my fantasy, I haven't written the whole thing out yet so you're going to discover more about it as you go along.  
> It's not the typical American college. And if you've had an experience where homophobia has been frowned upon then I am really happy for you because I've heard some of the most awful stories and I have seen some awful things happen to openly gay people in Universities and colleges.  
> This story is meant to be funny and enlightening whilst showing you how horrible people can be. But also that you are never alone, and that when you stand together, no matter how small your group, you are stronger. You are all strong, and don't you let assholish people ever stand in your way. I want you to remember that, and I want you to read this idyllic and realistic-yet unrealistic story in the hopes that it will make you feel better. Because it'll make me happy knowing this has made a sort of difference. And if you're here for the characters, that's great too :) I wish Rainbow Dorm really did exist. It would make the world a better place. Thank you.  
> Also, COLLEGE PARTY NEXT CHAPTER YAY! And the return of a common enemy.

The weeks continued to pass, each student attempting to cope as they juggled classes, extra curriculars and life around. Soon they were approaching the end of November, and in that short period of time, Rainbow Dorm's popularity had soared. It wasn't just at lunchtimes either-though that was something to be marvelled at. The lunch room was strictly for first years' only, since their timetable was structured in a similar fashion to that of the common secondary school, but often the older students would wander in-sometimes to see their younger classmates, but more recently, to witness this "rainbow dorm" business. Tony knew that this sort of fame should really piss him off-some of the older kids were real jerks. But most of the time they were full of support, and he supposed that now he wasn't regarded as the common punching bag, people decided he was pretty cool. It was almost like a veil had been lifted, allowing everyone a little more breathing room. In fact, his fame had gotten to such an extent that some days there would be lines just to sit on the Rainbow Table. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out who that would piss off.

And like most things in Tony's misfortune of a life, if everything was good for a long period of time, an equally devastating feat would have to arise to counter it. "There's a storm coming Mr Stark". Indeed Anne Hathaway cat woman (Tony thought Halle Berry was way better and no one shall convince him otherwise). 

Which is where we find ourselves now, outside the mutilated frontage of Rainbow Dorm, now covered in various bits of toilet paper roll, egg shells, other general debris and some brown stuff Tony seriously hoped was chocolate.

It’d been the weekly grocery shopping trip and Tony had been the first one back. Soon he heard the other cars pull up as the rest of the dorm members pulled up, each one stopping and staring at the development on the house.

Its once grey bricks were barely visible through the layers of graffiti and damage they had gone through. The paint from the initial graffiti was still clear, just splashes of colour from the sheen of egg whites and loo roll.  Some bastard had even managed to break the upstairs window. Tony didn’t want to see Pepper’s face when she found out her favourite lace curtains had been ripped.

“Wha-who would do this?” Darcy walked onto the front lawn, slipping her bag off as she surveyed the damage. Jane followed her onto the grass, covering her mouth in shock.

Pepper came in last and Tony watched as her smile was literally wiped off her face.

“Tony…oh my god…what happened?” She walked over to him, gripping his shoulder tightly.

“We’ve uh…been attacked by Angels?”

She glared at him.

“Dude…Tony…who did you piss off this time?” Rhodey looked over to him just as Elektra and Natasha went over to inspect the house too.

“I-why do you immediately assume _I_ pissed them off!? It could’ve been any of you guys!” He protested. Things weren’t _always_ his fault. Mostly, not always. There’s a difference.

“Tony I think it’s you who has the most famous rivalry with-“

“With who?” Natasha walked over, eyebrow raised.

“Johann Schmidt. You know, the douche bag who thinks he owns the school?” Rhodey explained, using fake quotations.

“So they did this?” Elektra and Maria walked over to where Rhodey and Tony were standing. Pepper had remained completely silent the entire time.

“Well…come on, who else would have that good an aim?” Tony said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Guys, it’s no use us just standing here and deciding who did it, the only thing we can do is clean up. If it the football team, then by cleaning the house up and making it look better, we can show our positivity and strength! That we stand together as a team!” Elektra said, animating her thoughts with her hands as she spoke.

“She has a point.” Pepper finally spoke up, detaching herself from Tony.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the philosophical one.” Darcy muttered.

Elektra gave them an easy smile. “They don’t call me hippie girl for nothing! Now come on guys, let’s get started.” She ran inside, the house, grabbing Charles as she did so. The poor boy looked traumatised enough as it was.

Soon one by one the others went in, grabbing whatever utensil they could find until the house was surrounded by ladders, ropes and mobile bin bags. Tony engineered a system where people could work on the roof and top layers, with other people used as suppliers to the cleaners. Pepper was _extremely_ pissed about the window but Tony figured it would pass once she started talking about new “Cath Kidston” curtains with Elektra. He had a feeling this was going to cost him in some way.

Clint, as it turned out, had an unbelievably good aim and managed to wash off even the most intricate bits of egg shell, graffiti and other such things using a simple water gun and sponge. Bruce used some nasty smelling chemical concoction to effectively clear each brick, with Maria flinging it on sponges using a…slingshot? Well if that was her preferred method. She mad anything look badass with that leather jacket and those shades. Actually…she never did take off those shades. Like he’d seen her wear them around the hosue too. Possibly some emotional attachment? With _sunglasses?_ He’d have to look into it later. For now, there was shit to be cleaned.

They were halfway done on one side of the house when Darcy had the epic idea of putting on some AC/DC. She also had an excellent taste in volume levels, so the guitar solos were practically making the house vibrate. Which in turn, would obviously attract a lot of attention. Several students walked past the house, waving or shouting words of encouragement. Someone had the audacity to say that it “served them right” and that “God was punishing them for their sins” but he was promptly dealt with. By Darcy and Clint shooting him in the face. Needless to say, he’s not bothering them anytime soon.

The clean up operation continued and Tony was pretty sure he did not own _that_ much Hydrogen Peroxide. In fact…he’s pretty sure he didn’t own a sponge gun either.

Ah well, it did the work. And he got the chance to bond with people. Especially Clint. No seriously, Clint and Bruce were his soul mates. That and they were dating…and Tony didn’t know. He was the only one who didn’t know. Why does no one tell him these things?!

“So you and Banner are like…a thing-thing?”

“Yeah man, we’ve been going strong since Junior High.” Clint said whilst attempting to eradicate a particularly stubborn bit of brown goo.

“Right…” He whistled, “That’s a...pretty tight bond huh?”

“Yeah I like to think so-“

“It was one of those dream high school romances. Cool and popular jock falls in love and protects lonely high school nerd. And I’m your badass girl sidekick.” Natasha swung over to join Tony and Clint, both her feet and hands occupied with sponges. Gymnast?

“Aw now that’s just adorable. Hey when you publish your erotic autobiography be sure to dedicate it to me huh?” He teased, and yet this accomplished a high five from Natasha and Tony was going to count that as a win.

“Hey! Starky!” Tony looked down at the source of a new female voice that definitely wasn’t Pepper’s. Instead, he was faced by two extremely attractive members of the female gender waving up at him.

“Oh what did I do to deserve this…” He muttered, beginning to lower himself down.

“Wait I thought you were gay.” Clint followed him down, raising his eyebrow.

“What just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate hot girls!”

“Uhm hello…still here and can totally hear what you’re saying?”

“Good then you should take it as a compliment honey. Hi, I’m Tony Stark-but you already knew that.” He said, offering his hand to them. He was pretty sure he looked a wreck with greasy hair and dirt soaked clothes but wasn’t grunge sexy or some shit like that?

“Uhm yeah, pleasure to meet you.” Came from the girl who’d spoken first. She was a tall athletic girl with long black hair and brown eyes, deathly pale and Tony is once more reminded of the rumoured Goth Society. “Jess Drew, Nuclear Science.”

“Oh another nerd Stark, just your speed.” Clint nudged him with a wink whilst Jessica gave a very unamused look in their direction.

“What about you?” He said, pointing to the blonde next to Jess with his gun.

“Carol Danvers, aeronautics. We stopped by because Pepper said there was a room going free-we, uh, weren’t exactly comfortable with our previous accommodation.”

“More like Pepper caught us making out and gave us a free pass.” Jess muttered under her breath, examining her nails.

“Uhm yes, so…do you need a hand?” Carol said, gesturing to the carnage.

“Is there an initiation process?”  Jessica said…a little too excitedly.

“Hey, this isn’t the illuminati!” Tony protested. “But yeah we need a hand, go in, dump your stuff and grab some sponges. Oh and some bio-enzyme cleaner if we have any.”

 

They nodded and walked in. Well then, looks like he was going to have buy some more sofas for the lounge. For now, it was back to the scrubbing.  Seriously, he was going to kill the guy who did this. Or guys.

He should be pissed. He should be super mega pissed. Instead he just stood at ease, accepting the task in front of him-he was used to it. Sadly.

\--

“Steve! We need to go to practice we can’t be late again!” Sam whined as they clearly went the _opposite_ direction of the football training ground.

“C’mon Sam it’s just a detour.” Bucky said, all for walking the other way. “’Sides, we don’t even know if it’s on. The guys weren’t in this morning.”

“Of course it’s on, tight ass captain wouldn’t let us off so easy.” Sam said, kicking the ground. Steve walked on with a long sigh.

“Too bad-so we’ll just have to do a few extra rounds of the field. No biggie.” Bucky said with a dismissive wave.

“We’ve been over this Bucky! We have work to do an-“

“Guys, shut up and just enjoy the rare moment of freedom we have okay?” Steve said, raising his hands as he walked.

“Yeah Sammy, learn from the Freedom lord himself.”

“All hail.” Sam agreed as they ran off towards Student Village. SHIELD University was planned so that the main campus was at the top of a hill, with all the colleges located around that area. Further down was Student Village where there were dorms and shops specially catered for the students accepted into the University. It was guarded 24x7…well, at least they assumed it was.

The dorm system had been simple, you pay a group rent to live under one roof. Respect each other’s privacy and no one really cares what goes on behind closed doors. Unless your dad was a billionaire and flat out bought the house *cough Tony Stark cough*.

“Hey… ain’t that Rainbow Dorm?” Bucky said, pointing over the building covered with ropes, ladders and people.

“Oh yeah-hey there’s Stark.” Sam said, pointing to one of the figures. Steve frowned and walked towards the house.

“Steve-Hey! Steve where’re you going? You’re not seriously going t-“ Sam called after him.

“He is…oh He is.” Bucky grinned.

“Johann’s gonna kill us…”

“He already has our asses I don’t see how this could be any worse.” Bucky said as they followed Steve onto the overgrown lawn.

“Hey! You guys want any help?” Steve called, shading his eyes from the sun.

About 12 heads snapped down to look down at him at once, with one person finally climbing down.

“Hey! Steve! What’re you doing here?” Tony Stark approached him, eyes shaded by what was probably once a pair of swimming goggles and clothes covered in grunge and junk. And it was still utterly hot-I mean, not that Steve…ah fuck it, you get the point.

“Well Bucky, Sam and I were on the way to practice and we saw you guys on the house, figured you could use a few extra hands.”

“Oh really? What, feeling guilty for what you did to our house?!” Elektra said, holding her broom in a menacing position. Which was ironic since she’d been the one who’d been at ease with forgiving and forgetting who’d done this in the first place.

“What-no, no we would never-“ Steve started to speak, raising his hands in a defensive manner.

“Ha! Don’t make me _laugh_. This is exactly the sort of thing you pretentious elitist douche bags would do!” She sneered. “Just because we’re different from you, just because some of us have the decency to speak up, does not give you the right to mutilate something we love. What have we ever done to you!? You idiotic bastards with your perfect bodies and matchstick skinny girlfriends. You think that defines you? You think that makes you better than us? And yet you have the _audacity_ to come here and act as if everything’s okay, life’s a walk in the park. You make me sick.” She finished, breathing heavy as the anger shook through her body.

Sam and Bucky had bowed their heads, determinedly staring at spots on the ground. The others had silently continued cleaning the house save for Tony and Elektra on the ground. Tony fiddled with the straps on his goggles in a nervous panic. But Steve had stood up straight through the whole rant, refusing to let his eyes wander from Elektra’s face.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” He started. “But I regret to inform you that it wasn’t us who did this to your house.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I think it’s obvious why you would blame us, because we’re part of the football team right? We’re all jerkfaces who like picking on the little guys, we love beating the crap out of anyone with an ounce of decency or courage. Yep, that belief defines us all-regardless of the individuals on the team, we’re all dicks because we like sport and happen to be damned good at it enough to be accepted into a university team. So that instantly means that, whatever asshole decided to do this to your house, you’re going to take it out on the first member of the football team you see because it was clearly their fault. No, you won’t consider that maybe we have our own views? Maybe we’re people with thoughts too? Sure we may have had a clean break, and my heart goes out to all of you who’ve had to suffer the wrath of our captain, but I don’t think either Sam, Bucky or I ever made one of you suffer. So why hold it against us? In fact, we’re not all jerks-if it was Ben or Johnny, would you do the same to them? You would, wouldn’t you? Because they’re on the football team. They must be jerks.  But let me tell you this, the fact that us three are risking our reputation and scholarships to come here and ask to help you guys even though this has nothing to do with us should surely tell you something about our characters? Hey, Charles, we helped you when Erik beat you up didn’t we? Erik told us to join in. We didn’t, because we’re not jerks. So don’t make assumptions about things you don’t know about”, his voice was practically booming over the eerie silence surrounding the house.

“As a wise man once said” He continued “Assume=Ass, You, Me.” He chuckled, regaining his composure. “So maybe you might want to think about that. For now, good day and sorry we couldn’t be of much help.” He turned around, picking up his sports bag from the grass. “C’mon guys, we know where we’re not wanted. Practice probably started about half an hour ago anyway and I don’t fancy running around the astro at half eleven” He began to walk off the lawn. Bucky and Sam slowly stirred from their grass staring trances, giving small nods to the people who were still looking before walking off to join Steve.

“Well, that was interesting.” Tony said, breaking the awkward silence.

“I…I kinda feel bad now.” Elektra said, rubbing her arm as she looked away. “I guess we could use the extra help…especially from such strong men…well the first step to forgiveness is admitting your mistake. Be right back!” She ran off in the direction the three boys had gone, leaving a very confused Tony.

Elektra returned five minutes later, her arms around Sam and Bucky with Steve walking behind them, beautiful sunny smile in place.

“So guys we have these three hunks helping us do the heavy work now!” She said, happy-clapping-yes, that’s a thing. Tony doesn’t get it either.

“I don’t think the rope system’s gonna hold you…how do you feel about getting dirty and doing some ground work?” He called from his perch on the roof with Barton-who’s nickname was now Hawk.

 “Seriously Stark, you’re asking the football team about getting dirty? Haven’t you seen what we do everyday?” Bucky called back with a wink.

“Oh~ I thought you guys weren’t into that.” Tony said winking back. Steve’s smile suddenly seemed a little more sour than before “Okay you guys have the ground. Lunch’s in” He checked his watch. “An hour. Let’s go people!”

Elektra ran back to join Maria on the windows whilst Steve, Bucky and Sam began on the grass debris.

They worked through the day, having started rather early in the morning. It was late afternoon and the sun was beating down on their backs when they decided it might be a good idea to have a break.

Steve had long discarded his t-shirt, golden pectoral muscles imposed upon lucky onlookers. The same could be said for Bucky and Sam really, sweat slickening their well built up planes of rock as they stood under the sun in a triangular formation. You could’ve mistaken them for a pack of werewolves.

“….damn….” Darcy said under her breath, as they watched the three boys walk over to join them for lunch.

“You’re telling me.” Tony said, re-wiping his goggles as they started to steam up.

“Hey so we, uh, better go…we don’t want to impose any longer-“

“Nonsense! You helped so much, you simply _must_ stay. I insist.” Pepper said with her usual welcoming smile, grabbing Sam and yanking him down onto the grass section next to her.

“If it’s no problem with you ma’am.” Steve said, nodding to the others. Bucky sat next to Rhodey and Steve (thankfully) sat next to Tony.

They were having an amicable conversation about life when the party came up.

“So are you guys coming to Sue Storm’s party next weekend? Heard it’s gonna be a blast.” Sam said, looking up from his salami and tabasco sandwhich.

“I..wasn’t aware we were invited.” Pepper said.

“Oh it’s for everyone, I heard Sue talking about it in the hallway.” Elektra said whilst casually feeding Maria a grape.

“Well do we want to go?” Natasha said, raising her eyebrows.

“I don’t see why not, are you sure it’d be okay if we came?” Carol asked. Always good to be certain.

“Oh yeah, well we’re going.” Sam said, referring to him, Bucky and Steve.

“We don’t have a choice Sam we have to go.” Bucky said in his usual borderline grumpy drone.

“Yep, football team perks.” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“I wasn’t going to go.” Steve said, “I don’t really like those sort of things. I mean, unless you guys are going. I wouldn’t mind so much then.”

“I think we should go.” Tony spoke up, gaining enthusiastic nods from his crowd. “I think we should go to show Schmidt that we’re not scared, that his little attack hasn’t done anything to us, hasn’t stopped our morale, hasn’t hurt our egos. In fact, it’s just made us stronger.”

And thus the day came to a close as Kelly Clarkson’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” was played on repeat throughout the evening. Before Darcy got pissed and slammed some Slayer into the CD player. That’s some good shit. 


	6. Stormy Parties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay people, you got your wish, I added details about SHIELD university in for you! I updated quite a few of them so you might want to go re-read a few of them. Otherwise, please be happy with this offering! This chapter is VERY idyllic. I didn't want to talk about too much drinking/boozing because it is bad kids and I would not recommend doing it. I just hope this chapter is okay. OH! WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF RAPE. BUT ONLY MENTIONS. I don't like non-con and I will never approve of it.

**\--**

“Oh my _god_ Jess.”  
  
“Oh my _god_ Tony.”  
  
“I am not wearing this!” He said, gesturing to the tight black jeans currently covering-no, sheathing his legs and thighs (and behind), a yellow spandexy-feeling shirt and matching black leather jacket. He looked like a man whore.  
  
“Why not!? Steve will be tripping over his own feet just to come close to you.” She said, tightening the jacket even further.  
  
“Because I don’t want to look like a hooker! This is the last thing I want those guys to see me in. I’m supposed to be manly!” He replied, easing himself from Jess’ grip and ignoring the Steve comment.  
  
“PAHAHA Omg did Tony seriously just say that he was manly?!” That was Darcy, the voice from behind his door.  
  
“I think he did.” Rhodey, trying not to laugh.  
  
“Hey Barton you’ve been replaced, Tony’s now the manliest man of this dorm.” Natasha. Followed by more hyena laughter. Were they all just standing outside his room like creepy stalkers?!  
  
“Very funny guys! I could kick you out right now y’know, I own this place!” He yelled, crossing his arms like an annoyed child.  
  
“Sure you could Stark, sure you could.” Clint called back.  
  
“Face it honey you need us.” Carol. Oh what even Carol had joined in? Now he was like 90% done with all of them. (Secretly, he loved it)  
  
“Idiots, let’s just leave.” He emerged from the room, facing the stunned faces of his housemates. He shook his head and walked away, leading the walk to the Storm's.  
  
Sue and Johnny Storm owned a large house in what was dubbed as “Jock Park”-it was the one area  
where all the sporty and popular people lived, including the football team. Their parents had also bought the house, and they lived with Ben Grimm, his girlfriend Alicia and the power puff girl wannabes Wanda, Sharon and Janet.  
  
It wasn’t an uncommon thing either, and there was fortunately very little difference between the houses in Jock Park and the houses in the other areas of the village. Tony’s house was like a labyrinth, with about 5-6 completely fitted rooms on each of its three floors; it was practically a bed and breakfast.  The storm’s house was smaller and more modern plus they had a swimming pool because Daddy liked spoiling his little princess.  
  
But that was probably the greatest thing about Student Village, it was like a nice (key word here being like) community and no house was “better” or “worse” than another. Well, there were some grunge kids who decided it was a-okay to have rotting pizza boxes on their lawn and dirty laundry hanging from their windows from daily orgies, but they were an exception.  
  
And that’s really why you couldn’t have a party without inviting everyone else. So as Tony and the Rainbow Dynamos walked up the hill to the place they’d pretty much sworn never to enter, they were joined by all the other houses and organizations. You usually roomed with your best friends, your classmates, or your club mates-and it was easy to tell who was who.  
  
Soon the loud bass of some ridiculous dub step song penetrated the cool winter air as they were approaching the party house, a queue already forming to get inside.  
  
That was when Tony saw him.  
  
“Tony…is that-“Pepper squinted as they both looked in the direction of the boy.  
  
“Oh my god it is.” Rhodey had joined their staring line, as all three heads were now fixated on the figure in green.  
  
Tony turned away; he didn’t want to be seen. Not by him. Especially not in this outfit. He began to walk, his head bowed down when he ended up colliding with a brick wall. Well, a brick wall that smelled insanely good.  
  
“Oh! Hey Tony! I’m so glad you made it!” He looked up to see that he had, in fact, just collided with Steve Rogers, who’s chest was probably the most sensational thing he’s ever touched.  
  
“Hey Steve, yeah thought it might be a good idea to come.” He said, scratching his neck like he’d seen teenage guys do countless times in movies.  
  
“I’m glad…oh, uh, you look…wow…you look great.” Steve said, noticing Tony’s very tight outfit. And let me tell you, that wasn’t the only thing that was tight either.  
  
“Oh god this thing?! Jess forced me into it. I’dve been comfy with some sweats!” He said, feeling a little self-conscious now.  
  
“Well tell her she has a good sense in fashion then. Janet dressed me.” He said, gesturing to his tight fitting peach skinny jeans (peach!? PEACH!? And damn if that boy didn’t wear it beautifully either), loose V-neck t-shirt (white and see through ladies) with a short cropped blazer on top. Tony was so right; they would be the hottest couple on campus. One could only dream.  
  
“Then she has impeccable taste too.” He replied, hoping his face didn’t look too sleazy.  
  
“Oi, if you two social bunnies are done flirting, we’re going inside now.” Darcy waved them over, smirking as Steve bowed his head and flushed.  
  
As they entered the house, Steve was joined by Bucky and Sam, all three of them in identical outfits, looking equally as uncomfortable.  
  
“Woah didn’t anyone tell you to get a little originality?” Clint walked over and gave them all horrified looks.  
  
“We didn’t really have much of a variety.” Sam said, pulling at the blazer with disgust.  
  
That’s when Tony realised how lucky he was. In a sense, he had much more freedom than any of the boys on the football team. They were required to confirm to a certain expectation, they had to look, behave and act a certain way. Tony was free to do whatever he wanted. Even now, as he watched them join with Hank, Ben and Johnny, all in equally ridiculously coloured jeans and blazers, he realised that they probably didn’t have any freedom of choice or speech whatsoever. And all this for the price of playing something they loved.  
  
“Tony, green devil nine o’clock.” Rhodey whispered-well it was more like a very violent hiss, into his ear.  
  
Learning from many shameful experiences, Tony immediately turned and walked in the other direction, only realising halfway through that he'd made a beeline directly to the dance floor.  
  
Sue and Wanda were d-jaying, deciding it was a good idea to walk around in skimpy bikinis. But if that’s what they wanted to wear, as long as they were comfortable and happy, that’s all that mattered.  
  
Tony slipped into the crowd of hormonal kids and awkwardly started to move. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Maria leaning against one of the walls, sipping some sort of colourful drink.  
  
Okay so he was pretty much by himself. That was cool, he could handle this crowd. As long as no one paid attention to him. Or noticed him. Besides, these kids were too into grinding their own girlfriends to notice.  
  
He continued to move like a bound penguin until he felt the soft touch of a small hand pressed against his back. He froze, immediately thinking it was Loki. But he would know those fingers anywhere.  
  
“Hey Tony, sorry to bother you but I’m sort of hiding from Erik…mind if I dance with you?”  It was Charles, innocent and looking pleadingly sad. Though it seemed Jess had gotten to him too as the boy was decked in leather trousers and a loose button down, emphasising his lanky body. Charles wasn’t his type, but even Tony had to admit he looked good.  
  
At first he was reluctant. This really wasn’t the best place to dance with another boy. He began to look around, desperately looking for some excuse out when he briefly locked gazes with the one and only Loki Odinson. The boy gave Tony a bitter look before snaking his arm around some random blonde’s waist, subtly giving her backside a squeeze. Oh, two can play at that game. And who cares what people say? He's The Lord of Rainbow Dorm. Time to start acting it.  
  
He turned to Charles, the poor boy still looking up at Tony with a worried gaze.  
  
“You know what Charley boy? I’d be honoured to.” He grabbed his skinny arm and pulled him into the middle just as “Wake me up before you go go” came on-one of Tony’s favourite songs.  
  
At first they were just swinging like mad people, even eliciting a laugh from Charles; poor kid looked like he hadn’t had fun in ages. But then Tony got another idea as it got to the chorus. He guided Charles through the beat, until George Michael really did hit that high when Tony pulled Charles into him so that they were chest to chest, still dancing, but now slowly moving against each other. It was rather erotic, actually. That should show Loki. That should show them all.  
  
\--  
  
Johann stood at the edge of the balcony overlooking the dance floor. Wanda and Sue had joined him not long after Tony and Charles had started their little act. He clenched his teeth together, frowning at the ungodly sight. He would’ve thought the mutilated house would have been warning enough. This was just ridiculous.  
  
“God, how disgusting.” He muttered under his breath, crushing his beer can in his palm.  
  
“I think it’s cute.” Wanda said, standing next to him. She smiled at the two boys now circling the dance floor-even she had to admit, they were both very attractive this evening.  
  
Johann glared at her, before putting his arm around her waist, digging his fingers into the flesh on her hips. “You won’t think it’s so cute when your soul is burning in hell, Wanda.” He hissed, releasing her with a squeeze and walking off.  
  
"And I suppose yours won't for raping your girlfriend." She muttered, examining the marks that were definitely going to bruise tomorrow. Wouldn't be the first time either.  
  
\--  
  
“Tony-ah, are you sure this is okay?" Charles looked worried. Well he always did, but more so now.  
"Hell yeah it is! You're doing great!" He said, twisting with Charles.  
The song changed with S club blasting through the speakers.  
Carol and Jess appeared next to them as Elektra dragged Maria onto the dance floor. Natasha and Pepper surfaced at some point too as Clint, Darcy and Jane carrying Bruce. The other kids cheered as all of Rainbow Dorm gathered on the floor, dancing in one giant circle. Rhodey, Bucky and Sam sat on the sides, like the loners they were.  
"Oi! Rhodes! Front and centre!" Tony yelled, inviting him to come in.  
Rhodey's expression turned solemn as he shook his head. There was no way he was going to get his reputation ruined by Tony again. Even if he was his best friend.  
"Come on Rhodes, scared your reps gonna hit the ground." Bucky teased.  
" it did the moment I made friends with Tony Stark. "  
"Then you've got nothing to lose. I do, but why live life with regrets!" Sam said, downing his drink and joining the massive circle of Dancers.  
Bucky watched them, contemplating before downing his drink too. "No harm done enjoying yourself, ain't called a party for nothing!" He ran on and slotted in between Clint and Natasha. Rhodey watched them, rolling his eyes. Bucky looked back at him, giving him a genuine smile-a rare experience for Mr Barnes. Oh now he couldn't say no to that. Tony owed him big time. He walked onto the dance floor and grabbed Bucky's hand. The rainbow circle was now in full bloom.  
Tony decided he loved every person who'd joined the circle, smiling at the supportive onlookers sitting on the side of the dance floor, letting them take control. What would make it perfect was if Steve was here, wherever that boy had gone.  
\--  
"Steve! So glad you made it!" Sharon Carter, eagle in training located her prey as he made his way down to the bathroom.  
"Oh Sharon! Hi, how are yo-" he started to say before he found himself being attacked and pinned against a wall. Sharon held his two hands above his head, covering his middle with her own and placing one slender leg in between his.  
"Sharon-Sharon what are you doing?!"  
"Shh.." She said with a smirk, "Just enjoy this..." She leant down to kiss him, Steve just managing to dodge the intrusion of her lips by twisting his neck at a rather painful angle.  
"Sharon-please let go of me!"  
She smirked, "come on football boy, make me."  
Steve frowned, flattening himself against the wall. "Sharon...I don't want to hurt you."  
"What if I want to be hurt?" She replied, her knee starting to move against his crutch. He gasped-more in pain than arousal.  
"Sharon please, please stop! “He said breathlessly as her knee continued to penetrate his sensitive male area.  
"Oh come on Steve, I know you want this. “She said, starting to grind down on him.  
"No! Sharon! Get off!" He growled, not normally one to be this rude.  
"Oh Steve, I love watching you battle yourself control. Relax, let go." She started to whisper into his ear. "I know you want me, how could you resist me?" Her hand moved up his shirt, hooking into the collar as she started to rip the garment down. He clenched his teeth, making his split second decision.  
"Like this." He said, kicking out and pushing off her leg, watching her crumple to the ground-completely ripping his shirt as she did. Steve took his chance, running up the hallway, darting into the first open door. It was pink and full of girly decor. Probably Sue's room then. He scjanned the room for an escape route. Window? No, too many people. Bathroom? Too obvious. Closet? Perfect. It was a walk on wardrobe as well; so he would be perfectly concealed. Slowly opening the door, he sat behind her dresses using their length for cover.  
"STEVE YOU JERK!" He heard Janet yell as she ran into the room. "GET BACK HERE!" She shouted. Steve held his breath as he heard her walk around the room, exhaling only when the sound of her footsteps died out.  
That was an experience he definitely wanted to forget.  
\--  
Tony's dance circle had grown so big the room was practically overflowing with people. Thor, who Tony knew from high school; him being Loki's brother and all, but he was really nice and pretty cool about the whole thing. That and he was part of the football team. Not that it seemed to bother him. The same went for Ben and his lovely girlfriend Alicia.  
Even Johnny Storm seemed to have forgotten about the nose punching incident, welcoming Tony like a brother.  
The circle continued to dance until a slow Spandau Ballet song came on, and it was agreed the couples deserved a song.  
Tony decided it was high time he got a drink-dancing for that long really does take your breath away. As he stood, beer cup in hand, he was passed by people of all ages slapping his back or punching his shoulder, telling him how awesome he and his dorm were. He could only smile in response, unable to find the mentality to offer a decent answer.  
It wasn't like the whole world suddenly accepted them, as if all the attitudes had completely changed, but it was a start that majority of the people seemed completely at ease with them.  And that was more than Tong could ask for.  
He downed the rest of his drink, smiling as they celebrated his name. Someone had also started up and "Anthony" chant. He didn't even want to know where they got his full name from.  
"ANTHONY!" It became louder. But then he realised, it wasn't a multitude of voices....it was one voice. One very sinister and familiar voice. Tony turned to face the source, locking eyes with a pair he'd thought he'd never see again. It didn't take him long to decide the next course of action as he ran up the stairs, in search of a place to hide.  
Loki followed him, continuing to call his name. Tony ran down the hallway leading to the bedrooms, going into the first one that seemed open.  
He could hear the footsteps approaching fast. Panicking, he ran into the first hidey-hole he could find. The closet. He settled himself on a pile of Sue's lingerie, getting comfortable on the lacy pile.  
"Face me, you coward!" Loki growled as he entered the room. "You think it'll be that easy to get rid of me? You are MINE, you will always be mine!" He said, pacing the room, waiting for Tony to answer. When it was evident he was not getting one, he decided to leave. “You cannot hide forever, you cannot keep running!” He called, before leaving and slamming the door behind him.

Tony sighed with relief, thank _god_ he’d left. He guessed he’d have to face him one day, but today was not that day. Not when today had been so awesome.

He stayed in silence, lamenting on the past events until he was aware of the sound of secondary breathing.

“Hello” He said, a little nervously. It wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence to be stuck in a closet with someone else.

“Hey, Tony?” The voice replied. Oh he knew that voice, and he thanked the lord for its familiarity.

“Steve! Hey, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Uhm…Sharon…tried to, uh, she tried to…uhm…she tried to have…she tried to bed me.” He finally managed to get out, stuttering on the letters.

“Bed you? Like…try to have sex with you?”

“Yes, but she pinned me against a wall.”

“Oh. Like that.” Tony was flabbergasted. That wasn’t something he’d expect from…well to happen to especially, one of the football team members.  “What a bitch.” He said, resting his head against a particularly padded bra.

“Basically.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you can tell everyone I’m back in the closet.” Tony said, laughing lightly and celebrating when Steve started to chuckle.

“And I’m still in one.” Steve added, shuffling closer to Tony. He started to laugh when he properly computed what Steve had just said. He was still in one? Still in the closet…? Did that mean…oh lord. Did that mean he was….gay? Holy shit Steve Rogers was gay. He was going to need a moment. Or a thousand.

“Hey Tony.” Steve started, after a few minutes of dead awkward silence.

“Y-yeah?” He replied, cursing his shaking breath.

“Do you think…you can tutor me?”

“Tutor you? You slacking Rogers?”

“Something like that.”

“Well lucky for you I expertise in Physics, Quantum Mechanics, maths, In-depth anatomical studies, Sex Ed and phallus elongation.”

“…Quantum Mechanics would be fine...” He said, laughing a little.

“Great! When d’ya wanna start? Preferably a day when you’re not running around the football pinch in tight leathers and having a grunting match with the guys.”

“I can do Fridays?”

“Perfect. It’s a date.” Tony said, instantly clamping his mouth as he realised what had slipped past. He opened his mouth to apologise when the closet door opened, revealing the big four of Pepper, Sam, Rhodey and Bucky, all appearing to have equally shocked expressions.

It was only then that Tony realised what they must have looked like. He looked overt to Steve, who was shirtless and mussed up, and Tony had his eternal sex hair from an hour of dancing.

“It’s not-we didn’t…it’s not what it looks like !” He insisted, just as Steve started to flush.

Pepper just raised her eyebrows, Sam’s eyes widening as Bucky and Rhodey gave them unamused looks, rolling their eyes.

“Tony we’d been looking everywhere for you!” She said. “You too Steve, you both just..disappeared!” She said, as Bucky did air quotations behind her back.

“I was running away from Loki.” Tony admitted, getting up from his comfortable underwear pile.

“I was hiding from Sharon.” Steve said, following him.

“I don’t care what you were doing we’re going home now, get yo asses out of here.” Rhodey said, grabbing Bucky to leave Sue’s room. Sam put his arm around Steve’s shoulders and dragged him out.

“We’re going back home, see you around guys!” He called, Steve smiling shyly back at Tony.

“Come on Tony, what will people say! Oh my gosh, you really had to get the big one didn’t you? Oh Tony what’re we going to do!-“Pepper started to fret, but Tony couldn’t care less what people said. He had a date with Steve Rogers. 


	7. Couples Retreat AKA CharHulkStonyEyeRik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys, thanks for all the LOVELY comments on the last two chapters, I'm really honoured! I'm so happy you liked it and I hope you'll continue to as it progresses! 
> 
> IMPORTANT: If the formatting of this chapter is bad, I do apologise, I had to transfer this chapter back and forth devices and it started to ruin the way I'd structured my writing. I will get around to improving it so please bear that in mind as you read this. 
> 
> Okay notes on this chapter PLEASE READ: Basically, this is purely a story chapter, it is literally going to wrap everything up for a few of the couples and then lead onto what I have planned later because I thought we could all use a little backstory, so not as much meaning as I put into the other ones, hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Also- shoutout to AO3 users Orchid, Jessy and Saral_Hylor for being awesome supportive people-you guys inspired this chapter! In fact, thanks to all of you who commented. Also, if you have an idea/request that you would like to see happen in this story, please tell me and I promise I will try my best to add it in. Ciao!

CharHulkStonyEyeRik aka Couples retreat

  
The days following the Storm's party were filled with much rumour spreading, photo uploading and congratulating. Everyone had heard a variation on the closet story, and of course as people tended to talk, ridiculous assumptions were made. Tony decided not to care, it didn't bother him before, it definitely wasn't going to now.  
Besides, all he could think about was the tuition/study date he had with Steve.  
When Friday night finally came around, he was in already in a panic, desperately trying to clean the house. Darcy and Natasha found it hilarious.  
"Aw just look at you, little Tony being a big man and cleaning the house all by himself!"  
"Shut it Darcy, some of us actually have some dignity." He replied, carefully placing one of his many comic collections on the top shelf of his bookshelf.  
"Tony!" Pepper called, arriving at the now crowded doorway leading to his bedroom.  
"Ah it's okay Peps, I know I don't have any. “Darcy said with a shrug, leaving to go scavenge for food. Natasha rolled her eyes and gently took Pepper's hand, following Darcy and leaving Tony to start thinking about the many couples living in their house.  
It was approaching 6 o'clock and Tony was starting to get anxious. He had never been this nervous for a meeting before, let alone anything vaguely resembling a date. It wasn't a date. He was just being stupid. But he was nervous all the same.  
They were all in the living room watching Star Wars when the doorbell eventually rang. Tony sprang off the sofa and ran to the door, ignoring the sniggers from behind.  
"Steve!" There was the golden Adonis himself, tucked into a quilted jacket and jeans, tartan scarf loosely thrown over his neck with books tucked under his arm. He was any boy's wet dream.  
"Hey Tony," he smiled nervously, looking down.  
"Come in! Sorry it's a bit chaotic in here. “He said, leading Steve through.  
"Thanks Stark, considering you live here yourself. “Someone called from the living room. Probably Clint. Tony rolled his eyes and opened the living room door, giving Clint a particularly rude stare. Steve stood behind him awkwardly, looking down. He knew Tony, Pepper and Rhodey were pretty okay with him, he wasn't so sure about the others.  
"You Steve, come to gate crash movie night?" Darcy said, waving attempting to catch popcorn in her mouth.  
"Oh uh no, I didn't realise it was...like that. I can leave if-"  
"Chill Steve, she's just pulling your leg; you're more than welcome here. In fact, it might be a good thing that you're distracting Tony from the TV" Pepper said, gently patting his shoulder as she entered the living room with Doritos and dip.  
" oh, thank you. “He stammered, stretching the little patches of red that had appeared on his cheeks as he smiled. Tony looked like someone had pissed in his milk.  
"We better be getting on, I don't want you monsters to taint innocent and pure Steve any further than you already have." Tony said, gesturing for Steve to follow him up the stairs to.  
"Oh yeah Stark try to keep it down, we're trying to watch a movie. “Natasha said with Pepper on her lap.  
"AND USE PROTECTION!" Elektra called. "What? You can never be too careful." She said as the others all stared at her. Way to be subtle.  
Tony appeared in the door way, flipped them all off before walking back.  
"My room's the first one on the right-yeah the one with Batman..." His voice trailed off as he disappeared up the stairs.  
There was an awkward silence before the entire living room erupted into laughter. Life in this dorm was never boring.  
Clint wrapped an arm around Bruce, turning to check the front door was closed; a natural instinct, developed after years of living with intrusive older brothers. In doing so, he caught the back of Charles Xavier attempting to sneak out of the house.  
"Yo Charles, where ya goin'? Revenge of the Sith's on. “He called causing the poor boy to jump on the spot.  
"Oh! Uh...hi, Clint, I'm just-y'know, out...going out that is. Library. Homework-later!" He stuttered before legging it out if the house.  
Everyone else was too absorbed in the movie to notice what was going on, save for Bruce who gave Clint a rather odd look. They sat in silence until Clint could no longer bear his curiosity.  
"Hey, Brucie-"  
"Follow him?"  
"You know me too well." He smirked as they silently left the room. Darcy saw this as the perfect opportunity to invade the sofa.  
Having wrapped up adequately for the cold winter nights, Clint and Bruce left the house and walked into the night, attempting to predict Charles' footsteps. Nothing beats a casual evening stalk.  
\--  
Tony held his breath as Steve entered his bedroom. It wasn't dirty, per se, just a bit chaotic- the very same word he'd used to describe his dorm earlier. But he loved every inch if it, all the decorations had been out up with the utmost care and dedication. It was a large room, rectangular in shape with the window facing east. Tony had kept a colour filter blind over it so he was woken up with a beautiful orangey yellow glow in the morning. Underneath the window was his "study" area; five rectangular desks conjoined together in an L shape with his various laptops, printers and other electrical devices cluttering the top. But perhaps the crowning glory was the extensive cage sitting in the corner. It had been made in the shape of a space station, with brightly coloured pipes connecting the various levels. A decorated rocket stood at one edge of the cage, with a flying saucer sitting on top, filled with blue fluff. Tony was especially proud of the hand painted sign that stood above it, made with a working Green Lantern Corps logo saying "Archimedes' Cavern"-Archimedes being the name of the resident currently occupying the space station cage. That was the first place Steve walked to, smiling at the workmanship involved. 

Archimedes, sensing company, popped his head out of the flying saucer, sliding down the pipes. He was a Russian dwarf hamster with thick brown-grey fur and small pink paws. He was also one of Tony's best friends, probably the cleverest hamster ever to exist. Steve leant to get a closer look at the little furball as he decided to show off to the new friend by climbing the bars over his play area and running into his little wheel. 

"Don't mind him, he's just a little show off." Tony said, secretly proud of his little buddy. 

"Naw he's adorable!" Steve said, chuckling as the hamster continued to run laps around his cage. 

"He's one of my best buddies, don't know what I'd do without him." Tony said, the little guy had only been with him for a year but Tony'd developed a spiritual connection with him. "He likes you, maybe if you're good I'll let you play with him." Steve laughed and moved on into the other recesses of Tony's room. 

The book shelves were next, spreading across from one side of the room to the other, even standing above his bed until they met at his wardrobe. His bed was super queen sized, and he was rather proud of the memory foam mattress sitting in his Ferrari shaped bed frame. There were some things you never grew out of. The icing on the cake was probably his Lightning McQueen bed spread with matching pillow cases. Yep, this really was the room of a college student.  
He anxiously watched as Steve continued the inspection, looking at the various stacks of comics, books and scientific journals Tony had collected. He shifted awkwardly, hoping to try and get to his bed when the floor board decided to give out a loud creak and Steve remembered where he was, snapping back to attention.

  
"Sorry," he said with a sheepishly embarrassed smile, "Your room is really awesome."  
 "Thanks, you should see the one back at the mansion."  
"You should see mine too. I have the DC Golden Age character anthology-cane with a free poster too, every superhero they'd ever mentioned up to that point. Hand drawn and signed. You gotta see it." Steve said, his voice laden with passionate comic appreciation.  
Tony raised an eyebrow, "Was that an invitation?" Came out of his betrayingly flirty mouth before he had the chance to stop.  
Steve tilted his head, giving Tony an intent stare. "It can be..."  
Tony returned his look, before moving up and scanning one of his book shelves with a vague sentence about science.  
"Wouldn't want to uh, waste your time." He said nervously, trying to ease the awkwardness. Steve nodded, trying to mask his slight disappointment.  
"So Steve, what do you want to start with? Oh I completely forgot-do you even do Quantum Mechanics? Because I didn't see you in any of the classes..." Tony realised how stupid that must have sounded. If the boy needed help in a subject, surely he would be taking it. Still…Tony hadn’t seen him in that part of the university at all.  
"Oh yeah I'm thinking of changing courses, finance isn't really cutting it y'know? Just thought I'd get a little head start so I'm not behind." He said, scratching the back of his neck.  
Tony shrugged, well that made sense. “Okay, well let's start from the absolute basics..."  
\--  
Bruce and Clint were strolling along the dark and obscure paths of Student Village, desperately trying to locate even a hint of Charles’ path.

“This reminds me of our old dates…” Bruce said, after minutes filled with nothing but their combined breathing.

  
Clint laughed, "It does actually. Stealing vodka from your mom, running out to the woods.  I was lucky my bros were there to help me out."

  
Bruce smiled, reaching to grasp Clint's gloved hand.  "Remember how it started? Without secret meetings?"

  
 "God, how could I forget? You were that quiet kid at the front of the class and I was the douchebag at the back.  Never gonna forget the day we got our asses handed to us by Bruce freaking Banner." He said, reaching to kiss Bruce's forehead.

To be honest, he wasn't sure how anyone could forget that day. He could still remember it in every detail, the day they finally saw little Brucie crack.

He had always been that one kid the bullies decided to pick on. He hadn't done anything, they just decided he was nerdy and needed to be reminded of it. And Clint had been part of that group. It happened every morning and every break, they rarely missed an occasion to pummel the hell out of him. But perhaps the most memorable of them all were the lunchtimes.  
"Oi Banner! What happened to my 5 bucks?" Victor Von Doom cornered the scrawny boy as he tried to balance his prized Oxford Physics Bible and lunch tray on the walk to his usual table.  
"S-sorry." He stammered, slowly raising the book to hide his face.  
"Sorry don't cut it Banner, now I don't have my lunch." He spat into Bruce's face, sending the boy backwards.  
"S-Sorry, h-here, have mine." He offered meekly.  
"Well isn't that nice, but you see Bruce; I don't want your lunch. I want MY lunch. But I can't have that unless you give me your five dollars." He said, pushing the boy hard.  
Bruce stumbled and attempted to make his way towards the nearest table. Doom saw his opportunity and stuck his foot out, tripping the poor boy up.  
The book clattered to the floor, leaving the cafe resonating with the loud thump. The tray of food splattered over Bruce's face and clothes. It was pin drop silence before the cafe erupted into a fit of laughter as Doom started to grab various items of other people's lunches and throw it onto Bruce.  
"This feel good Banner? This what you like?" He said, until he was standing directly over the sodden boy.  
Clint frowned, glaring at the other boys in Doom's crew. He caught Natasha's worried stare from across the café. She was one of Bruce's only friends, and Clint hated it. He got his fair share of Bruce's attention and friendship. But it wasn't like they could hang out in school. They were only 14, but even then there were certain people you couldn't be seen with.  
It killed him to see Bruce treated like that.  
He moved to the front until he was next to Doom. The kids were standing and laughing, pointing at the tormented boy. Only Natasha and him dared to stay quiet. He briefly locked eyes with Bruce as he tried to give him an encouraging smile. But Bruce just looked away, a small tear threatening to come out.  
"Aww is Lickle Brucie crying? Here, this should help them tears come out." Doom grabbed a box of chilli chips, throwing the box straight down onto Bruce's head, red sauce splattering everywhere. Now he was going too far.  
"Doom st-" he began to say something when they heard a growl coming from Bruce's crouched form.  
The laughs started to slow as Bruce slowly rose, food and all. His small body was still shaking as he took a step towards Doom.  
The other boys backed off, leaving a small circle around them, sensing something messy about to come.  
"What? You gonna hit me Banner? Batshit crazy Banner?" He sneered.  
"I'm gonna do much worse Doom." He said, shouting as he launched his fist straight into Doom's face, using his momentary lapse to kick Doom in a rather sensitive area between his legs. Doom collapsed onto the floor, his eyes betraying the shock he felt. People began to move towards the fallen boy, but Bruce wasn't over yet. He kicked into Doom's sides, kicking harder and harder before grabbing his physics bible and slamming Doom repeatedly with the heavy object.  
"That's what you get for calling me a nerd!" He yelled, hitting him again   "For taking my money every day." Another hit. "And for saying you slept with my mother!" He finished with one final hit from the book before decorating his Doom canvas with a chocolate milkshake. Doom was bloody and unmoving; Bruce had probably knocked the poor boy unconscious. The cafe was in awe-little Bruce Banner? Just beat up Victor Von Doom?

  
Doom’s remaining minions picked the boy up and dragged him away, just as the teachers finally picked up on the fight. Clint was grinning like a madman.  He walked over to where Bruce was attempting to clean himself up. It was show time.  
He had to push his way past the throng of kids to get to Bruce, now the hottest shit in the room.  
The boy was smiling in the centre of attention, shyly pushing up the wet brown curls crowding his face with his equally soiled glasses.  He finally burst through and grabbed Bruce into a messy hug, grinning as his partner looked up in wonder and confusion. Clint realised it was now or never and cupped the boy's face into a kiss, tangling his fingers into the thick, surprisingly soft curls.  
There was a resounding gasp, but Clint couldn't care less. That was the day the world knew not to mess with Bruce Banner. Oh and that Clint was gay and totally not a douche bag.  
"That had to be the most fun I'd ever had in school." He said, tangling his fingers into Bruce's hair.  
"I was just glad the secret dates were over. We could be as social as we liked without worrying about being found." He replied, leaning into Clint's touch. They continued the trek through student village in silence, each thinking of the blissful years they’d had together, and the even better ones to come.

  
"Hey, I hear voices!" He said as they approached the forest area towards the edge of Student Village. It was an organised forest with trees strategically planted around a clearing. The clearing had some random moss covered stones in it and rumour has it the stones used to form a circle around the central slat stones supposedly forming an altar. It was an ancient marriage hall, often where forbidden couples would get married in secret.  
They made their way through the trees in silence, perching behind one if the oak trees on the second ring surrounding the clearing.  
They could make out two figures standing there; one bulky and muscly, the other small and scrawny. They were close enough now to make out what was being said.  
"Aw come on Erik, you can't still be mad about that! We were just dancing!" Came from the smaller figure- Charles, clearly leaving the other to be Erik.  
"Just dancing?! JUST DANCING?! You might as well have been filming a porno the way you guys were hitting it!" Erik shouted, getting up from the altar stone.  
Charles took an apprehensive step back. Bruce balled his fists in anger. He hated Erik, hated how the boy just walked over Charles. Speaking of who, was currently looking down. Erik stalked up to him, and Clint bit his lip in anticipation of violence. At least they would be there to stop it.  
But Charles seemed to gain confidence, finally lifting his head to stare Erik straight in the eye. Must be learning from sensei Tony.  
"Why are you so bothered? I don't get annoyed about you groping up Emma Frost...o-or pushing me down stairs!" He finally manages, just as Bruce's heart swelled with pride. He'd grown attached to the small and defenceless kid.  
Erik seemed taken aback. "Charles you know why I do that-"  
 "Yeah I know! And it - it's not bloody fair! You can beat me up, call me names and hurt my friends; but the minute I go and enjoy myself, you start having a go at me."  
"Charlie I do that so we can be tog-"  
 Erik started to plead, trying to get closer to the boy as Charles just moved away.

“Don’t like to me. You do it because you know there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Nothing I could do to stop it. I’m so glad we decided to go to the same university Erik, or else I’d still be your bitch!” He spat, getting angrier and angrier by the moment. “Because I’m done with you, I’m done with being treated like shit. You think you can just go on living your life, having your girls and still have me on the side? Think again. I want you to stay away from me, I want you to stop talking to me and I want you to leave me alone. And if you try to hurt me or my family in anyway, I will tell your father everything-yes, everything. I’ll show him the photos, I’ve got the proof. Then maybe you’ll understand even an ounce of the pain you caused me.” Charles paused, taking another deep breath. “Goodbye Erik.” He finished, turning on his heel and walking back into the forest, leaving the now statue like boy standing in his wake.

Charles made it to the first ring of the clearing before turning around again, devious smile on his face. “Oh and Erik, go fuck yourself, the same way you told me to for all these years.”

Bruce and Clint watched, stunned to silence. Their little Charles, acting all tough. It was almost enough to make any fake teenage parent proud.

Erik was still where Charles had left him, only slowly moving out of his frozen hold and stepping out in the direction of Jock Park. He looked absolutely shell shocked. Good, he deserved it.

“God…what a dick.” Clint whispered, turning to Bruce as they prepared to leave.

“I knew Erik was bad…but not like this…” Bruce said, following Clint out of the forest.

“It was good we came…I doubt Charles would have told us.”

“Yeah…should we talk to him about it?”

Clint paused, holding a contemplative expression. If Natasha was there, she’d say it was a miracle he even had one. “Not yet, let’s leave it for a bit. It was probably quite a big step for him. He’s gonna need some time.”

“I’m going to need time for what?” Charles appeared in front of them, anxious blue eyes darting between both of their faces.

“Charles! Hey buddy, we were just coming to find you.” Clint said, grinning and hoping he looked convincing enough.

“Did you guys follow me?” He said, frowning a little.

Bruce took off his glasses; something he always did before a confrontation. “Sorry, we just wanted to know what was up. We worry about you Charles.”

“Yeah but dude, the way you kicked it out there tonight, I don’t think you need us anymore.” Clint said, giving Charles a light punch on the shoulder. The boy smiled shyly, looking down to his feet as a silent “aw shucks”.

“You should’ve told us about Erik though Charles. We’re sorry-“

“Don’t bother, he needed to go. I’m just glad I found the courage to say so. I’ve never had people back me up before, never been strong enough to stand up to anyone. But now that I have you guys…well, I know nothing bad can happen.” He concluded with a large grin. Charles was actually older than Bruce, but age was just a number. He was always going to be their little baby.

“Right guys this is sweet but it’s hella cold and I want to finish Revenge of the Sith so…”

“Clint we saw that movie for 4 consecutive Valentine’s days! You _know_ what happens in the end.”

“Sorry Brucie, not my fault if that movie reminds me of you…” Clint said, hugging Bruce from behind and kissing his cheek.

“Ugh guys, this is rather touching and all, but please do save it for your bedroom.” Charles said, shaking his head as he walked away.

“Sorry kid, I guess mommy and daddy got carried away.” Clint winked and walked up behind him as they all headed back to the dorm.

\--

“Thanks Tony, that was…wow, you’re just an amazing teacher.” Steve said as they made their way downstairs after a very successful lesson.

“Ah shucks Steve, nah you picked it up really fast. Some people still struggle over the Wave and Particle basic thing, so you’re doing okay.”

Steve chuckled, “Well I hope so, wouldn’t want to be a slow poke now would I?” He said as they finally reached the door, leading straight into the cold night.

“So, this time next Friday too?” Tony said, standing in the doorway as Steve prepared himself for the walk home.

“Uh yeah, this time next week. I’ll call you if there’s any problems.”

“Cool-wait, you don’t have my number.” Tony said, the back of his neck suddenly feeling hot.

“Oh uh, here.” Steve gave Tony his phone, just as the latter attempted to find his own and prayed it wasn’t in his boxers. Not that he wouldn’t know…just…oh come on even you would be nervous if you were about to give your phone number to Steve Rogers.

They exchanged the numbers and Tony’s smile just lit up like Christmas lights as he saw “Steven Rogers” listed as one of his contacts.

“I better go, the guys’ll be wondering where I got to. See you around Tony.” He said, waving before taking into the darkness.

“Bye Steve….” Tony said, watching until he was sure he couldn’t see Steve anymore. Instead he was replaced by three other figures. As they drew closer, the figures turned out to be Charles, Bruce and Clint, returning from their maniacal night walk.

“Where the ever loving fuck did you guys go?”

The three boys looked at each other, seeming to have a mini conversation amongst themselves.

 “Oh you know, Out.” 


	8. It's thinking time motherfuckers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....this was risky.

“Alright you fuckers, listen up, league starts soon and we’ve been told that we need to show some maturity. This term may have degraded us, but we musn’t let it stop us! We shall not be burdened by those rainbow faggots who supposedly now own the student body. We must show them by winning the University league! Now who’s with me?!” Johann threw his arm into the air, expecting an enthusiastic cheer. Instead there was silence as his teammates looked to one another, confusion and slight annoyance evident on their faces.

“Excuse me Cap but…I’m pretty sure the student body has nothing to do with Football…” Johnny said, crossing his arms.

“You like that face Storm?” Gunther said from Johann’s side. Johnny nodded, raising an eyebrow. “Good, then you’ll  learn to shut up if you want to keep it.” He growled, chucking a football straight for Storm’s head. It was only luck that Steve Rogers turned up just in time to catch the thing, else Johnny wouldn’t have a nose anymore.

“Woah, careful there Gunther, wouldn’t wanna take out our defender that easily.” He said, passing it back with a harsh glare.

“And where exactly have you been?” Schmidt said with a snarl annoyed enough to mirror one of Snape’s.

“Out, can’t a guy have a social life?” Steve said, joining Bucky and Sam.

“Ah I see, have you, perhaps, acquired a lady friend?” He said, raising his eyebrow.

“ooh~” came from the rest of the team as they all nudged Steve, dying to hear the details.

“No no, not a girlfriend. Not yet anyway” He said, smiling shyly.

“Oh Steve, what a surprise! Surely no maiden on this campus could even bear to turn you down. Unless, of course, it is not a maiden you are courting.” He said, smirking slightly. This was followed by an eerie silence as Steve’s smile disappeared, now replaced by a hard glare.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing, merely suggesting that in this time of diversity, you may have wished to try another path.” He said, raising his hands defensively.

“Well even if I had, you’re the last person I would ever tell.” He said, smashing the football in his hands with his tight grip. 

“Oh Steve, I did not mean to provoke you, I was merely curious.” He said, not breaking eye contact with the blonde boy. There was a famous rivalry between them too, Steve had wanted to become Captain of the team-and very nearly had been, if Johann’s parents hadn’t got involved and stopped it. Unfortunately with them, bribery was always a solution.

“I think we should begin our practice session now, Captain.” Ben said, hitting Johnny to agree with him.

“Er yeah, don’t wanna lose the league do we?” He said with a nervous laugh, looking over to Bucky and Sam. Their guess was as good as anyone’s at the moment.

“Yes I see, I forget myself. 3 laps, rapid fire,  go!” He said as the boys groaned and began to reluctantly run the length of the field. Steve, usually at the front, now lagged at the back, never breaking eye contact with Johann’s. It was the most heated silent match they’d ever done. Johann smiled sweetly with a wave, after all, he was the Captain and Steve was not. And he was going to keep it that way.

\--

“So Tony, how’re the dates with Steve goin?” Darcy plopped down onto the couch next to Tony as they were enjoying another quiet night in. Thursdays were the tranquil and calm nights where most people were out or in their room studying leaving the living room free for the few straddlers who were lucky enough to have nothing to do. On most cases, it was Darcy, Jess and Tony.

“Yeah, do tell. We’re dying to know. How far have you gotten?”

“Sitting less than 10cm next to each other.” He said with a deadpan, rolling his eyes and burying his face into the bowl of popcorn.

“I’d say they’re going extremely well, Tony’s voluntarily watching a rom com” Pepper said as she walked into the room, looking at the screen where _“The Proposal”_ was currently going on.

Darcy and Jess snickered and Tony contemplated about how this had become his life.

“Well at least we know who’s the woman in this relationship.” Jess said, fist bumping Darcy.

“Wow guys, so mature.”

“Aw come on Tones, we only tease you cuz we wuv you.”

“Just like you love Steve~” Pepper said, ruffling the boy’s unruly curls before going off to her bedroom.

“Just like you want to bang Steve.” Darcy said, winking.

“Hey who _doesn’t_ want to bang Steve? The guy’s freaking sex on legs.”

“Uh! Jess, I’m so offended.” Carol walked in, sitting next to Tony.

“Hey Carol! You know I would never do that to you!”

“Sure. Maybe I should go and get into Steve’s pants myself.” She said, smirking. “We’re seeing the dreamboat tomorrow aren’t we?” She looked over to Tony. 

“Yes, where he will be kept safely in my room and far away from you people!”

“Oh good, then Carol and I can have a nice night in.” Jess said, winking over at the blonde.

“Can I watch?” Darcy said, with a sleazy wink in Carol's direction. 

“Watch what?” Elektra walked in, wrapped up in colourful woollens. “Tell me later, I have big news. You guys’ll hear about this tomorrow but I got it straight from the horse’s mouth!” She said, throwing her coat off as she stood in front of the television-the only way to get people’s attention in the room.

“So, as you know, December is approaching and that means that it’s going to be Christmas soon! So the lovely professors here at SHIELD Uni have organised for us to have a Christmas ball!” She squealed with excitement holding the leaflet up. “So the rules are simple, we need formal clothes and a partner to go with. It starts at 7, ends at Midnight on the 23rd and it’s going to be in one of the main halls-specially built for these functions. Oh yes and we're going. No exceptions. Ever." She said, her voice suddenly turning scarily serious. 

Tony, Jess and Darcy nodded, unsure of what else to say.

Elektra smiled, “Great, then we’re all set. Now, I’m off to find Maria so we can go dress shopping!” She said, clapping with exciement as she left, giving Charles a loud and sloppy kiss on the cheek as he walked in, making him turn an adorable shade of red. 

“Hey guys, I’m guessing you heard about the Christmas ball?”

“Yeah, and Elektra’s forcing us to go.” Tony said, bitterly eating popcorn like a badass.

“Now I actually have to interact with people to get a partner.” Darcy said, before getting of the couch and proceeding to flatten herself against the floor in an act of defiance.

Carol rubbed her back, attempting to settle the mass of black curls. “Don’t worry Darce, it can’t be as hard as you’re making it!”

“Yeah I mean no one’s going with Tony.” She said, managing to get Darcy to get up and hi five her.

Tony glared, “Really feeling the love now."

“Guys…not to burst your bubble or anything, but are you sure it’s a good idea that we go?” All eyes were swiftly directed to the meek voice coming from the corner.

“What d’ya mean Charley?”

“Well….I mean we already crashed the Storm party, what if they do something like that again?” That and he'd been desperately trying to avoid Erik since the night they broke up. It'd already been a month as they were fast approaching the end of November, but he didn't want to risk crossing their paths. Especially since the team had been eerily silent lately. 

Darcy snorted, “Please, those guys can’t hurt us. Besides, Tony’ll sort him out.”

“Yeah! Tony’s got us.” Carol said, hugging the unsuspecting teen.

“And we’ll just gay up anyone who stands in our way.” Jess said. Charles smiled, seemingly reassured. 

“Yeah, Tony’s got us.” He said,joining the Tony fanclub on the  Said boy sat amongst the crowd, absolutely mortified, fake smile plastered onto his face.

After the Storm Party, he wondered whether it would be a good idea for them to turn up, even though Johann had been nothing but distant since the incident. 

But the only issue was the partner thing. It seemed he was going to have to go on a people scavenger hunt. He had a large selection of people in the dorm, but pretty much everyone was going with someone. Carol and Jess-no exceptions, same for Elektra and Maria. Pepper was probably going to ask Natasha, Bruce and Clint were inseparable which pretty much left Rhodey, Darcy, Jane and Charles.

He decided to start with Jane, so the next day he tried to corner her before she left for class, just after breakfast. He found people were most agreeable when they were full.

“Hey Jane, can I ask you something?” He stood in the hallway, twisting his hands nervously.

“Hmm? Oh sure Tony! What’s up?”

He took a deep breath. Here goes, “I was just wondering if you wanted to co-“ 

“MY FAIR LADY JANE! I HAVE COME TO ASK YOU WHETHER YOU WISH TO DO ME THE HONOUR OF ACCOMPANYING ME TO THE CHRISTMAS BALL?” Thor Odinson was standing on their front lawn; flower, chocolate and champagne in one hand, large sign bearing “I WISH TO BE ACCOMPANIED BY YOUR HONOURABLE PRESENCE” in the other. Prude. That also got Tony worried...if Thor was going, would that mean Loki was too? 

Better not to think about these things. 

Jane squealed, turning red at the sight before frantically checking her face in the mirror. “Sorry Tony! I gotta go, ask me later okay? Bye!” She said, before running down the stairs. Well, that ticked her off the list.

The next person was Darcy, because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have found someone in just one day. And he _really_ didn’t want to take Rhodey (also considering he was the only straight member of Rainbow Dorm).

“Hey Darce, have you got anyone to go to the-“

“Christmas ball with? Sorry Tones, you’re like half an hour too late. Rhodey already asked me.” She said, smiling sympathetically. “But uh, I don’t think Charles’ is going with anyone?”

“Oh yah, sure, I’ll ask him.” He said with a fake smile. Looks like he was dancing with Charles again. Which wasn’t so bad actually because Charles was cool. It’s just he wasn’t Steve, but that was never going to happen.

But one thing he couldn’t get off his mind was what all the girls had said the previous night. They seemed to regard him as some sort of hero, as if he’d done some great feat. All he did was  stand up a little, shout at Erik until the Dean showed up and went to a party he clearly wouldn’t normally be invited to. It wasn’t revolutionary. It wasn’t like he’d beaten someone up in the defence of the gays, or made an inspiring speech.

“What’s eating your brain?” Tony jumped awake as someone broke his contemplative silence, jumping as Maria Murdock appeared next to him.

“….nothing I hope.” He said, trying to pay attention to the game he had been playing, only to find he was dead. That’s what he gets for playing with Space Pirates.

She raised her eyebrow, a thin brown line raising out from the abyss of her dark glasses, which she _still_ hadn’t taken off. He still needed to find out what was up with those.

“You’re eerily silent and still, surely something is wrong?”

He looked away and sighed. After Loki, he didn’t really do emotional confrontations. But he doubted Maria would do anything like that.

“I just…don’t understand why people look up to me so much y’know? They talk like I’m some big shot hero who’s saved their lives. The only reason Charles got in here was because he was hurt-and he still has scars from that! I didn’t prevent that, in fact I almost worsened it! I’m not a hero, and all I wanted to do blend in this year. Then that shit with Loki happened and I’m suddenly the fucking messiah. I mean sure I got this place as somewhere kids could be free and I’ve tried to talk people out of their homophobia, but it’s not like I’ve changed the world. I’m just glad the media hasn’t got wind of this yet.”

That was something he’d been avoiding thinking about. It was a well known fact that most of the children in this university were the sons or daughters of rich and famous billionaires, with Tony possibly being one of the most prominent. Their “high school” was a place known to cover and keep the identities of such children safe. It was basically like any other high school, but with more security. Johann Schmidt had many a time tried to get the media onto Tony’s back. It was only his luck that his dad was there to prevent any of that happening. He knew he was going to inherit Stark Industries one day, so it was no problem. But even his parents didn’t know about the whole “gay” thing. There was a side to Tony that he’d rather people didn’t remember, and that was when he would go around getting drunk at every senior party to try and gain popularity. When it didn’t work (as in, he got the popularity but not the type he wanted) he embraced the inner nerd and became an outcast. But during that time, he’d been better well-known and loved than even Johann Schmidt. The boy had tried ever so hard to be recognised by the higher ranks, the cooler older kids, even going as far as making himself sick on drugs. It didn’t work, and thus established the epic rivalry between them.

Johann got his reputation alright, which is why everyone always did as he said (that and his parents were business tycoons, plus the Starks were about 99% sure they had mafia involvement, but this could all be speculation. You did _not_ want to get on the bad side of them). All Johann needed was a reason to attack, it seemed he never did get over the past. Or the fact that it was Tony who took Wanda’s virginity (they never speak of that) or the fact that Tony would always be that much smarter than Johann. It seems a rather petty thing to bring with you to university, but that’s the definition of powerful grudges.

Tony was glad that photo of him and Loki hadn’t been leaked to the press, or if it had, his parents had clearly sorted it. He hadn’t spoken to them since he’d got here. But that wasn’t much of a surprise since he was almost 90% sure his dad wanted him permanently out of the house aged 14. Also there might be the slight issue of his dad not knowing he was gay. His dad had never been proud of him, and every time Tony tried something or did something significant, it was like he was a burden to god. That was probably part of the reason he really didn't believe in himself. After a lifetime of being convinced you're worthless, it's hard to pick yourself up. 

“Tony? Tony you really must stop spacing out like this, it’s not good for your thought process.”

“Huh? Oh sorry, I do that sometimes. What was it you were saying?”

She shook her head and sighed, “I was saying that you may not have done all those things, but that doesn’t stop you from being a hero. I don’t think you understand the extent of your actions. I know you had a patchy time with Schmidt, but I think you forget he had a large social circle. SHIELD is a small place, and most of us know of each other’s high schools. I knew about Clint, Natasha and Bruce even though Elektra and I went to different schools right? I guess that’s both the beauty and disgust of social networking. We heard about Schmidt in our school, did you not question once how easy it was for him to assume power over us? Did you not stop to think about why people were so scared of the football team? They had a reputation Stark, just like we all do. But then you come along, you who he hates the most, and you stand up to him, you stop him from ruining you. What he did? That should have made you crumble. But you didn’t, and though you may not have had a direct influence on him, just you being there and standing up for them, that was enough to inspire them. It’s not just because you’re gay either-don’t use that as a handicap. Let’s face it, most of the kids here are straight right? They shouldn’t care if one gay man decides to fuck society’s views, but they did. They cared and they support you, despite everything.  Look at Charles, he just broke up with Erik after years of being taken advantage of-oh you didn’t hear about that did you? Well in any case he did that, he finally got the strength to do so and why? Because you showed him strength, you showed him that he wasn’t weak or alone anymore. You showed Elektra not to be so scared to be seen touching me-don’t context that, in public. She used to be so worried people would make fun of her or hurt her, now she doesn’t care. Those people coming to talk to you at lunch? They left inspired Tony, I just don’t think you’ve seen the full scale of what you’ve done. You’ve made such a positive impact, you’ve shown such strength-even when they defiled your house! And I think that’s beautiful. So if you’re having doubts, maybe you should remember that. Now, are you or are you not going to that damn ball or am I going to have to drag you there?” She finally paused, taking a deep breath after the speech, waiting for Tony’s answer. Instead she was given a very loud sniff, followed by a series of sobs.

“T-Tony? Are….are you alright?”

“Y-yeah I’m f-fine, just got something in my eye is all.” He said, wiping his betraying face. This is why he didn’t do emotional confrontations.

Maria smiled and put her arms around the shaking boy. She wasn’t much of an emotional talker either, the hugging was something she got off Elektra.

“T-thanks Maria, it means a lot.” He said, looking up, expecting to see into her eyes but instead he just came face to face with her sunglasses. And that was when he realised the reason behind the seemingly inappropriate dark glasses. She was blind.

Well that just added a whole new meaning to her speech.

“Anytime, next time I’m charging you.” She said with a smile. They spent the next two minutes in a comfortable silence as Tony attempted to calm down. Maria was playing the ratchet and clank game extremely well and Tony was really tempted to ask where she got such ace reflexes from. Apparently she was also a mind reader because in the next minute she simply replied:

“I’ve done 5 different forms of martial arts since the day I could walk.” To which Tony simply nodded, deciding to accept it. That still didn’t explain how she could see the game screen. Probably memorised it or some ninja shit like that.

The doorbell rang a few minutes later, disrupting their emotional bonding time.

“TONY YOU’RE WET DREAM’S ARRIVED.”

He rolled his eyes. “THANKS DARCY, AS IF I DIDN’T KNOW.” He sincerely hoped Steve didn’t hear that.

“Hey Tony-woah, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah yeah I’m fine uh, they had Frank on tv and I just…y’know, that movie makes me tear up every time.”

Steve nodded, seemingly understanding. “You know the dog survives in the end right?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any less emotional! I mean he almost died and they almost left him there and then the dad accepted him...how is that not emotional?!" He argued. He honestly couldn’t believe he was fighting Steve about the emotionality of Frank.

Steve raised his hands defensively, “Alright, alright. You win."

Tony smirked. “Of course I do.” They passed by the living room where Steve waved to Maria, who obviously didn’t wave back. Tony gave her a smile anyway, until he caught her mouthing “Frank!? Really!?” and decided to leave.

“Tony are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Steve said again, after two minutes of walking up the stairs. Tony paused, causing Steve’s worry to grow, before turning and smiling down at the boy behind him.

“You know what Steve? I’m great.”

\--

"He'll see you now." Johann Schmidt nodded to the receptionist as he was shown through to Dean Fury's office. The solid oak door creaked open, revealing the one eyed Dean, usual annoyed smile on his face and coffee cup in his hand. 

"Mr Schmidt, what're you here to bother me about today?" He said, scrutinising the boy as he walked in. His eyes failed to miss anything, and with just 3 seconds of watching him, he could already tell so much. That and he hadn't exactly been left out of the loop of rumours in school. 

“It’s about the Christmas Ball.” He started, taking an uncanny interest in the mint collection on Fury’s desk as he spoke.

“Yeah? What about it?” Fury replied, gruff and rude-as was necessary for boys like this. Wouldn't want to give him the impression that he had the upper hand. 

“I just wanted to talk to you about the conditions for partners….” 


	9. Ay Caramba!

“Hey Steve, where you goin’?” It was another Friday night, the ones that Steve looked forward to the most, and he was just leaving the Football house, hoping to slink out unnoticed. Instead he was faced with Johnny and Ben playing Mario Kart in the living room. They were probably over to see Bucky and Sam.

“Out, fancied a walk.”

Ben snorted, “In this weather? You’ve gotta be joking.”

“Physio recommended it, said it would be good for maintaining muscle build up-contrast of temperatures really, cold air against hot skin, supposed to be healthy.” Steve said, not even an ounce as confident as he sounded. He smiled and then darted out of the house before they had a chance to say anything.

“Well that was a total load of bullshit if I ever saw one.” Ben said, returning back to the game.

Johnny rolled his eyes. “The guy wants out, we should give it to him. We all need our privacy, especially in a hellhole like this.” He said, wrinkling his nose as the loud sound of some very enthusiastic love making could be heard over their game. Probably Gunther.

“Hello friends, Bucky and Sam are looking for our dear Steve, have you happened to see him pass?” Thor walked in, fresh from the shower with the towel still around his neck, Norwegian football t-shirt in place. His long hair hung like thick tendrils around his face. This was the manliest looking member they had on their team.

“Hey guys did Steve pass through here?” Bucky and Sam arrived not a second later, out of breath. Most definitely from Steve-chasing.

“Uh yeah he left like 30 seconds ago.”

“Which way did he go?”

“Out the front window, which way do you think Wilson?!” Ben said, chuckling as Sam gave him a glare.

“C’mon! We don’t wanna lose him!” Bucky ran past Thor and bolted out the front door with Sam running after. Thor raised an eyebrow, before joining Johnny on  the couch with beers.  

“Hey I unlocked the lightning cup! Sweet!”  

“Such a child” Ben said, as they went back to their gaming marathon, casting the strange behaviour of their team mates from their minds.

\--

Bucky and Sam used the fortunate cover of darkness to carefully follow the blonde head as he made his way through student village. He’d left Jock Park, passed through the forum, now heading for the grunge kids until he made it into the more secluded area where Rainbow Dorm was. It had the privilege of being surrounded by hedges and green fields, pretty protected with plenty of lawn space. In the dark, it looked like a creepy haunted house.

Bucky and Sam had very stealthily followed Steve there, concealing themselves in the hedges as Rhodey opened the door for Steve.

“I fucking knew it.” Bucky said, watching from the hedge.

“What?”

“He’s going out with Rhodes.” Bucky said, venom slipping into his voice.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Bucky…I think it’s clear he’s here for Stark.”

“But then why did Rhodey open the door with such familiarity!”

“….because he lives there! Remember who we found Steve with in that closet? Stark. So he’s clearly here for him.”

“Sure.” He said, as they continued to watch the house in silence.

“Think we should go in?” Bucky said, unable to contain his curiousity.

“What?! And betray Steve’s trust forever!? Yeah sure-and what if Schmidt finds out?"

“What the-please, like he could give two shits what we do.C’mon Sam, don’t be a wuss.” Bucky rolled out of the bush, striking what was probably a Tom Cruise pose at some point. Sam followed, shaking his head at the older teen's immaturity. Normally it was the other way around.They walked up to the door, knocking slightly hesitantly. They could hear the shuffle of footsteps before Rhodey appeared, looking slightly shocked and bewildered to see them. 

“Hey guys…what can I do for you?”  He said, eyes swiftly moving between the boys' faces. 

“Uh…” Bucky suddenly realised he hadn’t quite thought the plan through. He looked desperately at Sam, usually good with excuses.   
  
"We, uh, we just wanted to stop by, see how you guys were doing!" 

"Y-yeah! Takin' a walk in the neighbourhood, y'know? Thought it might be a good idea to say hi. Schmidt's got us off training tonight and he's takin up the couch back home, we figured we'd have better chances getting some decent company here."   
  
Rhodey smiled, "Sure sure, come on in. It's Mexican tonight anyway and Pepper made too much dip."  
  
"Hey, I am feeding a house of hungry, hormonal teenagers!" She said, emerging from the kitchen covered in avocado entrails. "Oh hello Bucky, hello Sam. I'm hitting the shower, Jess and Carol are taking care of the enchiladas, Darcy and Jane are making nachos, Elektra and Maria are setting the table and I put Clint and Bruce on the tacos."  
 "What about Tasha and Charley?"  
"Oh! They're making some quesadillas I think. Bucky, Sam-could you do the fajitas? Rhodey, help Elektra and Maria with the table would you? I'll be down soon." She ran off as Rhodey lead the two boys through to the large kitchen. Each of the work tops and islands were occupied with people making (and tasting) food. Pepper had forced them to wear ridiculous pink hair nets to prevent contamination. Darcy came over and slapped them onto the three boys' heads, laughing as she directed them to the fajita section.  
"We're eating on the back tonight, so Rhodey? Get the spare blankets, else we'll be freezing our asses off."  She called as they started assembling the food onto large plates.

  
Bucky and Sam were silent as they took in the exceptional hospitality. They were just welcomed in without a single question or doubt! It was nice, to feel included. The football house was far too hostile in comparison. You couldn't eat anything without it being "claimed" by someone else, if you shared you were a pussy, you fought for your food and recreation, like "real men".  It's no surprise Johnny and Ben didn't want to live there. Gunther and Schmidt encouraged the inter team violence, even though most of the team weren't like that. Thor, Bucky, Sam and Steve preferred to keep things peaceful, which is why they often hung out at the Storm's.  
But now that they'd come to Rainbow Dorm...well, it made them wish they hadn't signed up to the squad in the first place. Not that they had in the first place anyway, it was more their fathers doing than theirs. Rhodey joined them after a while, helping Bucky with the chicken. Sam decided to help Darcy and Jane, who were clearly failing at grating cheese. He smirked as he watched the two boys work. Bucky really wasn't as opaque as he thought he was.An hour passed like this, as Natasha grabbed the communal iPod, deciding to go classic with a Bon Jovi album. When it was time to take the food out, the two football players were breathless as they took in the site before them. The garden was lit with little Hawaiian candles, leading to a large wooden hut in the centre of the garden. The garden lights were twinkling, changing colour every so often. They walked towards the wooden hut, plates of food steaming as they sat on the table. The chairs were covered in quilts and vibrantly coloured cushions, giving the aura of a very homely atmosphere. Maria had chosen the colour scheme, earthen/woody colours for warmth. 

“Guys you’ll catch flies if you stand there with your mouths open! C’mon, the food’s gonna get cold.” Elektra passed them by, plates balanced perfectly on each arm. “And someone get Steve and Tony from upstairs.” She said, missing the nervous looks the rest of the inhabitants gave each other. 

They walked into the hut, taking their respective seats. Bucky sat next to Rhodey and Sam sat with Clint & Bruce. They’d bonded well over making guacamole.

“Hey guys, wow! Man this is awesome.” Tony walked into the hut, taking his seat at the head of the table. Steve followed, smiling at them all. And then his eyes found Bucky and Sam, his expression took a turn for the worst.

“What are you guys doing here!? Did you follow me?” He said, eyes narrowing. He knew Bucky and Sam would never betray him, but nonetheless he was worried. What if someone had put them up to this? The whole arrangement was still something he wasn’t comfortable with people knowing.

“Uh...no? We just went out for a walk and decided to stop by here.” Bucky said, hoping that was convincing enough.

“C’mon Steve, do you really think we’d do anything after these people were so nice to us?” Sam insisted, playfully punching Clint on his shoulder. Steve’s expression softened, “I guess not, but wow guys, this spread looks great.”

“Yup, it’s the first home cooked meal I’ll be having since I got here!” Sam said, mouth-watering at the thought of getting some decent food that wasn’t Maccy Ds.

“Wait you mean you haven’t been eating proper meals since the start of term?” Pepper said, worried.

“Well…no one in our dorm can really cook, save for Sam because his Ma owns a restaurant chain.”

“And we never have any fresh ingredients, it’s just freeze dried pizza most days.” Sam said, wrinkling his nose.

Steve nodded, “It’s horrid. At least at Ben and Johnny’s we get Indian takeaway.”

“But…isn’t the restaurant at least an hour and a half away?”

“Exactly, we have to fight for our food.” Sam said with a shrug.

“Well that just isn’t right, I think you guys should come over every Friday for a good, home cooked dinner. We’re all brilliant cooks, and I think it’s Taiwanese next week.”

“Wait-for real? We can come every Friday?” Bucky looked like a puppy who’d just received a large bone.

“Bucky! We can’t do that! It would be imposing!” Sam said, slapping the man’s arm from across the table.

“No no it’s fine, Steve comes here anyway. I think it would be great.” Tony said, smiling at Pepper. The boys opened their mouths to protest but Pepper shushed them with a wave of her arm, refusing to take no for an answer. 

“Then it’s settled! Now, let’s eat!” She said, as multiple sets of arms and greedy hands reached for the centre of the table, grabbing the lovely variety of food.

The laughter continued late into the night, well past desert and the after desert cheese board with coffee and tea. It was nearing midnight by the time Bucky, Sam and Steve officially left, the whole plethora of Rainbow Dorm residents seeing them out.

“Ayo Charles, you gotta take me to that Frozen Yogurt place sometime okay? All you can eat, all on me alright?”

“Bucky, I couldn’t-“

Bucky shook his head, raiasing his arms to signify that there was no obligation. “After this night? Man I owe you big time. See ya around.” He lead the way back to Jock Park, stretching as he walked. Sam was so busy trading tips with Clint, Bruce and Natasha, Steve physically had to drag him away.

“Leave dude, you’re gonna see them next week! Bye Tony, bye guys!” He called, grinning as they walked away.

“Well that was nice.” Pepper said, watching them leave.

“Yeah, this college life is becoming even more surprising than I first thought.”

“It’s good though, good that everything is settling down y’know? It’s nice, peaceful, now that no one really has it in for us.” Rhodey said, grinning.

The poor boy had no idea how utterly wrong he was. 

\--

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” It was early Monday morning at SHIELD university, the only day all the classes commenced at the same hour in the morning. All the students were just walking in when the loud and abusive shout echoed across the campus. 

The official notice board outside the main building had just been updated, and Elektra, extremely keen for the Christmas ball and determined not to miss any detail, had been the first to come by the board. Which is where she found the new notice, now bearing a sign in bold saying: 

_“All couples attending the ball must consist of one pure man and one pure woman.”_

“What’s up Elektra?” Jane was next to arrive, carefully adjusting her heavy backpack and balancing her pile of textbooks.

“Yo I heard screaming, who died?” Darcy came up behind her, looking from Jane to Elektra before noticing the piece of paper on the board. There was a silent moment as they read the sheet, Elektra seemingly frozen in shock. 

“What!? How _dare_ they!”

“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Now they were gathering a crowd as the students stood around Elektra and the sign. Various angry murmurs started circulating, and they could just catch a few “bullshits” and other such cusses.

Tony finally arrived, pushing through the throng of people, curious as to what the commotion was about.

“Oh Tony…” Pepper desperately held onto his arm, and it was almost like they were witnessing the funeral of someone they loved. In some ways, it was.

“What’s going on?” He said, utterly confused. 

Elektra shook her head, pointing at the sign. Tony’s eyes scanned the sheet quickly as his eyes widened in surprise.

“They…they can’t do that…” Jane said, covering her mouth.

“Apparently they can…” Darcy replied with a shrug. “But what the fuck does “pure” man and “pure” woman mean?”

“It means that no transgendered or genderqueer people are allowed to go.” Maria said, surfacing next to Elektra and sliding her arms around the girl's shoulders. 

“Tony…aren't you going to do something?” He was suddenly surrounded by curious gazes and anticipating faces. He realised they were waiting for him to take action, now that he was the leader of the free and strange.

“Uh….” He looked around, and locked eyes with Maria. Well, locked sunglasses with her. Maria knew he was looking at her and gave him a small smile, re-assuring him.

But this was something he wasn’t sure he could tackle. Interfering with fellow students was fine, but with the main board? That was the stuff of expulsion. His parents would kill him if that happened. He could already see his mother’s face.

“Uhm, I-I think we should just leave it. Just…don't go...?” Tony shrugged loosely and walked away from the crowd, followed by a few boos in his direction. He didn’t know what else to say.

So much for being an inspiration to the people. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there might be no Christmas Ball after all. Sorry guys.  
> Or am I? ;) stay tuned for the next chapter!


	10. Christmas? Balls!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....  
> This was my first smut. EVAR. I'm going to give you all cookies now because it's mainly dialogue and so awkward (but I did do that purposely because Steve the poor baby has never done it before)  
> Oh and Erik is Cinderella. Guest appearance by Wolverine!

“Spread it, Spread it like wild fire Darcy!”  Tony said, shoving the package into her arms.

“Alright, alright geez! I’m goin, I’m goin!” She said, tucking the large pile of leaflets under her arm as she left the house.  That was the last batch, soon it would be all around the campus. Tony had to admit, this was one of the best ideas he’d had so far.

In response to the Christmas Ball mishap, most of the students were very disappointed when Tony had failed to do anything inspiring. So he figured he had to do something to retaliate. Especially since Maria had been solidly ignoring him. At first he thought he was screwed-there was no way they could just gatecrash a ball with their gay parade. Especially since it was rumoured some very senior and powerful members of society were to be attending. Instead, Tony had this brilliant plan.

But it wasn’t only the students, the teachers had been badgered non-stop as to who had created this new rule and how come no one had stopped it. Something like this shouldn’t be tolerated!  Unfortunately, it was a small minority who had spoken up since most kids knew what was at risk if they rebelled too much.

Tony already knew who was behind it. The professors refused to answer any questions-in fact, most of them just shrugged and sighed at the new rule, saying they really had nothing to do with it. But he knew that the only person who had the power to make a rule like this was Dean Fury. And there was only one student on campus with enough cunning to force him to do it.

He was walking around student village the weekend after the Christmas ball update, deciding to dispatch some of the leaflets himself. Enough so that each house would have one. Elektra had made sure they were sourced from renewable resources, embossed on eco-paper that would soon be leading the future.

The village was more or less silent, and so he made his way to the central forum, sitting by the fountain. There wasn’t a soul in sight, so any movement was amplified. It was peaceful, just listening to the water flow.

But like most things in life, his peace was rudely interrupted by the sound of ragged breathing and pounding footsteps. At first, Tony thought it could be Steve training.

Instead, he was faced with the horrifyingly sweaty face of Johann Schmidt. They were now standing, facing each other from opposite sides of the fountain.

“Nice morning for a run, don’t you think, Mr Stark?” He started, sounding deceivingly polite. Well two could play at that.

“I agree, the air seems to be at the perfect level for an exhilarating muscular workout.” He replied, adding extra sugar to his smile.

“I agree, though on the subject of muscular workouts, I hear you won’t be attending this year’s Christmas Ball?” He said, attempting to sound sympathetic.

Tony fake sighed, “Yeah, some asshole used his parents fame and fortune to blackmail Fury into making that shitty rule, gosh, what a dick.” He said, putting his hand on his chin as if contemplating who the culprit could be.

Schmidt’s eyes narrowed. “Of course…”

Tony straightened up, drpping the act. “Okay cut the shit Schmidt-woah that rhymed, anyway cut the shit, we both know you did it.”

He feigned  innocent surprise, “Me? What-how could you suggest such a thing?”

“Quite simply really,we suddenly got a large supply of Schmidt Corp merchandise.”

“Merely a coincidence, just because my family likes to be charitable and donate to my education.” He said, crossing his arms in the pretentious attitude permanently attached to him.

“Sorry, did you miss the Stark Industries equipment used everywhere in this University? Or was your head so firmly shoved up your ass you were blind to the world around you.” He said, smirking. “Face the facts Schmidt, you and I are the big guns here. We either work with each other, alongside each other, or against each other. Now what’s it going to be?”

The taller boy glared, gritting his teeth, jaw set into a firm line. “There are no “guns”, there is only the gun, and that is-and always will be, me. You think you can just take my power-“

“Ah, so that’s what this is about then. You think I’m here to steal your title don’t you? Do you not get that all I want to do is make my friends accepted? Schmidt we’re a happy student community and you just come here and fuck shit up. We don’t need that, we’re going to lead the future generation Schmidt, and you can’t do that by being a possessive asshole. You need to be…” Tony chuckled and twisted his body, “ _Flexible_. People aren’t going to take you much longer, better start preparing.” He said, proud of how badass he sounded. Scmidt could probably pin him down and scoop out his entrails if he wanted to, so Tony was playing it pretty edgy at the moment.

Johann’s face seemed to continue to contort into an expression of pain. “We’ll see Stark, we’ll fucking see.” He said, turning and running back in the opposite direction. Tony decided his ass was nothing compared to Steve’s.

“Yo Tones, how’s it hanging? What’re you doing here? You missed the big game at Barbara’s!” Barbara’s was the sports bar in the main city where most uni students spent their weekends. They had wifi connection, unlimited food, warm atmosphere and old people willing to lend you their stories. What wasn’t to love?

“Hey Sam, I had some stuff to do. Gotta hand out these before it’s too late!” He said, giving Sam the piece of paper.

It read: “Rainbow Dorm Christmas Party, for unchallenged and unadulterated fun! Ruled out of the Christmas ball? Uncomfortable from being judged? Come party with us! 23rd December, 6pm onwards, Rainbow Dorm. Bring booze if you have any, don’t have any? Bring yourself!”

Sam looked up, “For real dude? We can come?”

“Sam stop asking! I’ve given you the invite to tell you to come, not to show you the pretty format!” Tony said, laughing.

“Great! I’ll ask Bucky and the guys! Uh...who am I allowed to bring?” He said, looking deadly serious.

“Anyone who doesn’t want to go to the Christmas ball! See ya then!” He said, waving as he ran back home. He could hardly contain his excitement.

\--

“So I take it you’re not planning to gatecrash the Christmas Ball then?” They were sitting on Tony’s bed, quantum mechanics textbooks surrounding them. Steve was lying down behind Tony, his head resting on his hand as the other teen read from the books. Over the past month or so, Steve had gotten to know Tony much better than he’d ever thought he would, and in the process, what had started as a small high school crush had escalated to something much larger. Something Steve was pretty sure it would be very difficult to come out of.

“No, but you got the party invite right? You’re coming aren’t you?” Tony said, really hoping Steve was going to say yes.

“Well…Sam said that Ben and Johnny were going to come, and I think now that Jane’s not going Thor’s joining you guys too but…Sharon and Johann might drag me to the ball…”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Steve, who’s choice is it? Yours or theirs?”

“…mine…”

“Exactly! C’mon, you wouldn’t want to abandon your best friends!”

Steve smiled, “Of course not. Yeah, I’ll come.” He said, it was a risky decision, considering all that this was riding on. But he’s only going to be young this once, and these years will never come back.

“Great!” Tony said, flashing that gorgeous smile at Steve. “Okay let’s get  back to this, y’know we actually have to accomplish something!” He said, laughing. “Our dinners take up way too much time.” They’d had Darcy’s version of Thai, which was very tasty, but they weren’t sure how much it was “Thai”.

“Okay so if we continue from this passage, we’re now moving onto photons and the quantisation of light, so basically those are just really posh words for-ah, St-Steve, ah-Steve wh-what are you-nn, doing?” His neck was currently being attacked by a pair of lips. His mind had gone into overheat, unable to properly comprehend what the _heck_ was going on.

“Stev-Steve stop!” He tried to move away from the other boy, ending up flat on his back, under Steve. They looked at each other, Steve’s huge and muscular arms were either side of his head so that his body was more or less aligned with Tony’s. Well, this wasn’t intimidating at all.

“What-what were you doing? Not that I, uh, minded or anything-“

The other boy growled, head bent down. “Way to kill the mood Stark.”

Tony gulped. This was a strange yet oddly arousing side of Steve he never thought he’d see. “What moo-“ his sentence was cut off as Steve grabbed his face and pressed his lips to Tony’s. The blonde’s eyes closed, long eyelashes fanned out over his skin.

This study date had escalated rather quickly, not that Tony was complaining any time soon.

He relaxed a little, leaning back against the headboard whilst Steve devoured his mouth, probably taking the remaining bits of curry in the process. They continued like that, tongues meeting in a battle until both of them needed air.

Steve pulled away, grinning at Tony’s currently very unstately form, hair even messier than usual, cheeks red and flushed, lips swollen and shirt halfway up his body, exposing his caramel stomach. Steve tackled the boy’s jeans, pulling the tight garments down whilst capturing Tony’s lips again. That was when Tony realised he’d forgotten to check which boxers he’d been wearing that day, and he prayed they weren’t anything too embarrassing. When Steve started chuckling, he assumed the worst.

“What-what is it?” He said.

“Nice boxers Stark.” He said, looking down at the very colourful superman boxers Tony had on; complete with their very own cape.

Tony blushed, “Ah ha ha ha, who’s killing the mood now huh? Oh wait, before we continue-have you done this before?”

Steve raised an eyebrow, hand clenched around the hem of Tony’s shirt. “Done what before?”

“like...done…the sex?”

Steve laughed, “Yes, my first was ah…Peggy.” He said, turning back into shy and polite Steve.

“Wait seriously, Carter? Damn son…what about with a guy?” Tony said, curious now as to what sexual adventures Steve had been through.

“Really Tony? Genius IQ and that’s what you ask me? Do you think I’ve ever done it before with a guy?”

“Well honey by the way you were leading me about 30 seconds ago I think you’d be the envy of even the most experienced gay porn stars.”

The eyebrow went up again, “Is that a compliment?”

“In this context, hell yes.” He said, deciding to take the lead and jumping onto Steve, tangling his fingers in the smooth blonde hair. Tony felt his boxers go, and soon two heavy arms were wrapped around his back, encompassing him in pure warmth. He took this moment to move his own hands down until he reached the top of Steve’s jeans, unbuttoning them quickly and shoving the damn things off. They pulled away again for breath and Tony decided it was time to judge Steve’s own boxers, trying to ignore the fact that he was now completely naked.

“…Really Steve? Manchester United?”

“We’re judged on our boxers.”

“How heart breaking, well say goodbye to your appalling taste in dickwear!” He said, whipping the offensive garments off along with Steve’s levi’s. Next he tackled the cotton t-shirt that hung loose on Steve’s biceps. It took a lot of effort since it was such a large amount of material. Steve was laughing as Tony struggled to take it off, in the end deciding to relieve the boy’s pain by doing it himself.

“So…what next?” Steve said, biting his lip. “You’re the expert.”

“Well, we could just get straight to the good stuff but that’s boring so…”

Steve smiled, “I think I know what you mean.” He said, slowly pushing the boy backward, straddling his naked waist and bending down to retrieve something from his jacket, not before taking a moment to look at Tony’s beautiful naked form. He was skinny but not in an exposing way, with just a little lean muscle. Hie was gorgeously tanned, a sort of mocha-toffee brown with small dustings of dark hair adorning his skin. He was reluctant to let go, enjoying this marvellous view a little more than he should.

“What are you-oh shit did you plan this!?”

“Possibly.” Steve replied, looking seductively dangerous as he produced a bottle of lube and a condom.

“Do I want to know?”

“You may want to, but you’ll never find out.” He said, winking before slipping down. “Well Tony, here goes.”

“Just as long as you don’t bite and go with the flow, you’ll be fine. Also, don’t follow Flo Rida’s advice, it’s not that good.” He was rambling now, and this was no doubt the result of boundless nerves.

He snorted before pressing his lips to Tony’s now hard length, then slipping his whole mouth on it. Tony gasped, it was warm and unexpected. Also it’d been ages since he’d gotten any so this was a welcome change. He started to suck and then Tony felt the rough and wet feel of Steve’s tongue running up his cock. This was like a million dreams coming too.

He continued like this and Tony could feel himself arriving at the point of release.

“S-Steve, I’m ah, I’m going to-“ Steve took his mouth off with a slight pop and gave the hard length a quick jerk until milk rained all over Lightning Mc Queen’s windshield, soaking into the material.

“I’m guessing those windscreen wipers weren’t very effective…” Steve said, looking at the dark stain. Tony in the meantime was panting, covered in sweat. 

“Mmhmm” He said, seeing stars. Steve grinned nervously, “So…how bad was it?”

“Bloody brilliant…” Tony replied, slowly getting up off his back. “But not enough, I hope you realise you’re topping right?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Steve agreed, “Uhm…do you want to…go on all fours or-?”

Tony grinned, “Okay babe, I got it from here. But first, you have to slick up. As much as I'm sure this is going to be great, I still have to walk to the lab tomorrow. You wouldn’t wanna rip out my ass now would ya?” He said, raising both eyebrows at the size of Steve’s own pength. Just how much testosterone did that boy contain?!

He watched as Steve slowly spread the gooey liquid on his cock, spreading it along the length. Not gonna lie-it freaking glistened in the light. Tony nodded and slipped onto his back, Steve now straddled his waist again, slotting himself in between his legs, now sheathed in a condom. Tony’s arms were around Steve’s neck as he gave the boy an encouraging smile. He plunged into Tony, making the other boy hiss as he took the foreign object. He pushed again, continuing in a steady rhythm until the boy moaned in pleasure rather than discomfort.

“Yes, ah, Steve!” He started to call as Steve gathered confidence in the direction of where he was plunging. It felt strangely good, much better than the boy had previously imagined. It wasn’t like the slick heat of a woman, but the rougher feel was somehow more arousing than he’d first anticipated.

They continued in this pattern, ragged breaths and the occasional unintelligible bit of speech exchanged between them until Tony released onto Steve’s stomach, dousing poor Lightning in another round of semen rain with a loud yell.  Steve came a second later, groaning something that loosely resembled Tony’s name before collapsing onto Tony’s chest. They stayed like that for a while. Steve honestly couldn't think of a moment where he had been happier. 

\--

“Ha, HAHAHAHA!” The terrifying screamo-hyena laugh of Johann Schmidt echoed through the football house as he saw the notice that had just come through his door.

“Rainbow Dorm Christmas party! HA! Who’s going to go here!? As if anyone would give up a chance to go to the Christmas ball. Stupid little Mr Stark, if he thinks he can use this to counter me! Bah!” He was now yelling, laughing hysterically as he shreeded the piece of paper in his hands.

“Oi! Schmidt ya lil piece of shit, shut the fuck up or fuck the fuck off!” That was probably Logan. Oh well, Schmidt just giggled to himself, walking up to his bedroom, throwing the pack of beer bottles he’d gone through into the kitchen where they landed with a crash.

“G’night Erik, see you at the coronation!” He said, hiccoughing as he collapsed into his room.

Erik had been sitting on his bed, looking at his own version of the Rainbow dorm Christmas invite. The paper was wrinkled in his hand from hours of being forced into a tight grip. He gently stroked the picture on it, a group shot of all the members of rainbow dorm with Tony and Charles in the centre, arms around each other.

“Oh Charles, I’m so sorry…” He said, putting the sheet away and getting into bed, wishing he could go to the party too. 


	11. Party planners and crashers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for prolonging the Christmas ball/party. But trust me, next chapter will be good! I've just had such little time, I don't get a chance to write as much into one chapter so I decided to split this one in two. Enjoy cute Stony though~~

Out of all the mornings after Tony had been through, he could safely say this had been the least awkward. He’d woken up with a mass of warm blonde hunk on top of him, arms holding the boy in a tight grip. Which also meant he was sort of trapped. Literally.  
  
“Steve, Ste-eve. STEVE!” He shouted, alerting the boy into consciousness. He slowly raised his head, blonde bangs messy around his forehead, blue eyes slowly becoming aware of the world. Tony could get used to seeing that every morning.  
  
“…Tony? What’re you doing in-Oh god, where am I?” He suddenly panicked, sitting up in the bed, raising the blanket as he did so that Tony was once again graced with his naked body. And the feeling in his legs because damn that boy was heavy.  
  
“Uhm…do you not remember, what happened, last night?” He said, smiling at the memory of the other three rounds they’d gone before they’d both decided to sleep. The latter two were, needless to say, far more successful than the first.  
  
“Of course I do, how could I forget?” He said, getting back down next to Tony. “Sorry, it just surprised me a little.”  
  
“Yeah, I can look pretty ghastly in the morning.” Tony said, slowly slipping out of bed in an attempt to locate some boxers.  
  
Steve sat up in the bed, resting his chin on his hand. “Tony…what are we going to tell the others?”  
  
Tony made a face at the wall, this was the talk he’d been dreading. He turned to meet Steve’s eyes.  
  
“…That you fell asleep in my bedroom? C’mon Steve, everyone knows you get tired after practice.”  
  
“But…what if they could hear us!”  
  
“Steve, surely after all these quantum mechanics lessons you’ve realised that we are a) on the third floor, b) that  my father and I, both being physicists, would have ensured the house was sound proof first?” He said, winking.  
  
Steve nodded, a little more assured now.  
  
“Trust me, if they ask questions, they can’t prove anything until they find the evidence for it-all of which, we will destroy. Starting with poor Lightning over here.” He said, stripping the duvet cover off whilst Steve re-dressed himself. A few moments later they were both in a presentable and clearly non seductive state with Steve taking care of the condom and bottle, hidden in a small plastic bag. He could dispose of it no problem, considering the amount that was thrown out of their football house every week. However for Tony, people went through the trash. If they found that, he would be interrogated.  
  
“Oh Steve, before we, uh, go, this isn’t going to be a…one time thing, is it?” He said, swallowing.  
  
“Oh Tony, of course not! Do you really think I would do that to you? Not when I’m pretty sure we have the next four years together.” He said, pressing his lips onto Tony’s once more. He felt the lighter boy sink under him, landing on the bed with a soft bounce. He smirked and continued, pushing him backwards further and further until they were both lying on the bed.  
  
“Steve-Steve, I think, ah, we should g-go down now..” Tony said, panting as Steve moved onto his neck. He finally got off Tony, but straddled him instead, smiling down at the positively dishevelled boy. He placed a small kiss on his forehead before pulling him off, carrying him to the door.  
  
“Steve I’m not your girlfriend, you can put me down.” He said, rolling his eyes.  
  
“You might as well be, Mrs Stark.”  
  
“Does that make you Mr Stark?” He said, looping his arms around Steve’s large neck.  
  
“If that’s what you wish.” He said, kissing Tony’s nose and setting him down on the floor in front of the door, where they made their way down.  
  
“Morning you two! Steve honey, you must have been so tired last night, I think you’re training too hard!” Pepper said, giving him a hug and a small kiss on the cheek, as was customary of anyone in Rainbow Dorm. She had taken up being the new Mom (because let’s be real here, how much can you survive without your mother?). “You all are, even Bucky and Sasm syayed over, the poor souls. Found them crashed out on the sofa!”  
  
Steve panicked a little. “Wait…Bucky and Sam stayed over?”  
  
“Yeah, I gave them the guest room, they probably had to share a bed.” She said, chuckling as she assembled some breakfast. “Now Tony, we’re going to need some bread and eggs since we have guests for breakfast so be a dear and go to the local store would you? I’ve updated the grocery funds, so we should have enough to last us until January!”  
  
“Ugh, ask Rhodey to do it!” He said, collapsing on one of the Kitchen islands. He was limping ever so slightly, and Steve partially blamed himself for making Tony this tired. He did go a little overboard last night. But could you blame him? He couldn’t believe how he’d managed that. He’d been planning this for a while, taking the cursed items with him every time he went to Tony’s for tutoring, but somehow last night he’d gathered enough courage to go the full mile. It was risky, he knew that, especially if his father found out. He knew he would have to work extra hard to make sure his dad never found out.  
  
“Steve, you comin?” Tony walked past, grabbing the house keys and his jacket. Steve nodded, following. They ran to the shop, it would’ve only taken 2 minutes had they not chased each other and goofed around the whole way. When they got back, the whole dorm was awake and it seemed Pepper had commandeered the dining room table with stacks of papers and phones.  
  
“Ah you’re just in time, we’re starting to plan the party! Now that Bucky and Sam have told us who’s definitely coming from their dorm, we can begin to estimate numbers.” She said, giving Maria a calculator and a stack of charts. “Okay so…we need to plan this. We need food, tables, a bar…” Pepper launched into a detailed description of how the party was going to be planned, whilst Jane and Sam made pancakes and waffles with hot chocolate for breakfast. They had to admit, Sam really was a very talented chef.  
  
The morning was a blur of frantic phone calls, budget deduction (and construction) until Pepper announced that she must take her leave. It was then that they decided to have weekly meetings to plan the Christmas parties. Which, of course, Steve, Bucky and Sam were required to attend.  
  
“Brilliant! That’s all sorted then. Final decision-snacks or meals?” She said, looking around the table.  
  
“Snacks, we’ve invited everyone on campus, finger food should be fine.”  
  
“Great! Okay guys, that was super productive, now if you’ll excuse me, a few of us need to go to the library.” Pepper pushed off, carefully placing the party file in the communal study area next to the living room. Elektra, Natasha and Jane followed her out as the rest of them got to cleaning the place out. It had gone to 2 in the afternoon by this time, but it seemed no one was in a rush to go anywhere. Well, more so the people who didn’t have access to the clock.  
  
Bucky and Rhodey were playing monopoly with  Jess and Carol whilst Clint, Bruce and Darcy had a Mario Kart tournament. Steve and Tony lounged on the couch, watching the world go by. Charles was sitting quietly in his corner, and it wasn’t because he felt secluded, it was because he liked sitting at a point in the room where he could relax and observe everyone.  
  
It was a nice way to spend a winter afternoon, the Christmas songs were playing on the radio and it seemed like suddenly everyone was getting very festive.  
  
That was when Sam checked his long forgotten phone and visibly turned pale.  
  
“Guys…it’s half 5…we were meant to be at practice 3 hours ago and then we has the team conference..."  
  
“Well slap my ass and fuck me sideways what a miss.” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “Like we give a shit anymore. Ben and Johnny’re skipping today too, they went out into Town. I think Logan’s gone to get wasted too. Loosen up Sam!”  
  
“But…you know what? Yeah, we should. He’s a racist bastard, I don’t know why I give a shit about what he says anyway!”  
  
“Woah, Sammy, did you just swear?” Jess said, raising her palm. “Up top man, and here I thought you were the well mannered quiet one.”  
  
“Naw I am, just when assholes like Schmidt talk about me being exceptionally "privileged".  He had my family researched because he thought we were cons and pirates. Based the whole damn thing off the colour of my skin!"  
  
"Geez...I don't get why you guys hang with him. I don't get why people were so scared of him." Jess said, sighing and running a hand through her hair.  
  
"Wait you mean you didn't hear about the stuff he did?" Darcy raised her eyebrow, extremely surprised.  
  
"No...." Both Carol and Jess were interested now, only heard sparse rumours concerning the destructive teen. Tony tensed up, slightly worried as it what was to come. This must have been what Maria meant.  
  
"He beat up kids twice his size! We knew about him even in our high school."  
  
"Yeah and that one time he tied a kid to some rope and dangled him from the gym ceiling completely naked!"  
  
Tony remembered that. Mainly because that kid was him. Steve looked over to him with a sorry smile. Bucky and Sam had mirrored expressions of disgust at the memory.  
  
"Jesus! Seriously? That bad?" Carol was in shock, Jess looked severerly annoyed.

“So now you know why we hate him. I feel bad for these bums, they’re lumped with him for life.” Darcy said, pointing to the football trio.

“And now you know why we don’t bother with practice so much anymore. It’s not about playing the sport now, it’s all about social standing and shit.” Sam said, attempting to buy Paddington station. This was Charles’ version of Monopoly, so it was British.

“Well anyway, we showed him! Hey Stark, you asleep or something?”

“What?”

“Well, we just gotta hand it to you, never properly thanked ya for all you did for us” Darcy said, blowing him a very Darcy-esque kiss. He smiled nonetheless, just happy at their words. Maria walked in and sat down quietly on the floor with a small smile. They whiled away the rest of the day with various other movies and games, with Jess forcing everyone into a Friends marathon. Tony was 90% sure it was some sort of subliminal message.

The following weeks were filled with party planning, food tasting and various calls to companies, organising everything together until it came to the weekend before the party. Most of the students were celebrating finishing various pieces of coursework and final essays, some even going home for Christmas.

Clint was put in charge of house checking duty, just giving the place a general tune up. He was about to check the energy monitor and fuse box-like in most houses it was in the basement, theirs was located on the outside. It was well protected and convenient too. There wasn't likely to be a problem, but Clint liked to be thorough anyhow. He whistled as he made his way to the side of the building, biting into his boost bar as he did. He paused to take a breath from his rendition of Taylor Swift when the distinct sound of laboured human breaths entered his ear. 

He looked quickly to where their energy monitor was located, noticing the outline of a dark mass of limbs, covered in a rather unfortunate winter overcoat. Clint crept up to the lump, his footsteps silent on the grass, before gently placing a hand on the person's shoulder, just before the person had the chance to cut their wires-hence completely cutting of their electrical supply. The figure jumped, pliers flying from their hands as they landed on their back with a loud exhaled breath. He walked over to the body, now resembling an overturned turtle, and carefully extracted the boy's askewed glasses. 

“Reed? Reed Richards?” He said, raising an eyebrow. What had they ever done to him? 

“I’m sorry I’m sorry don’t hurt me don't hurt me please Johann put me up to it okay he said if I  did something to damage your party he’d let me to go the ball with Susan please I’m sorry!” The kid was crying buckets, shaking and shouting in hysterics.

Clint pulled him up, giving him a loose hug. “Hey hey it’s okay, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. You should have known better! And c'mon kid, if ya wanted to go to the ball with her so bad, ya should've asked her first!" He said, gently rubbing the boy's shoulder. 

Reed sniffed, before stiffening in Clint's arms. "Johann. Oh he's going to kill me!" The boy wailed, waterworks running once more. 

"Hey hey listen-he can't hurt you when you're with me okay? He can't hurt you when you're here. In fact, he can't even  _touch_ you when you're with us yeah? We're gonna protect ya, don't worry." Clint gently gave Reed his glasses back, continuing to reassuringly squeeze his shoulders. It was a reminder of how he used to console Bruce. A sad yet consoling reminder all the same, all those times with Bruce really made him the man he is today. And if he could help a few other kids (though really, they were the same age) then so be it. 

"Ya know, you're one big idiot." 

Reed looked up, raising an eyebrow. Was this really a time to be calling him names? 

Clint laughed. "Ya really should've asked Sue, because she's helping us set up, she wasn't going to the ball in the first place!" He said. Reed rolled his eyes and bowed his head, feeling ashamed.

"I'm so-" 

"No need to apologise son, now come on inside. I think Pep and Tasha're making hot cocoa and that's what you need a good cup of. Come on now, up you get." He pulled the boy to his feet and lead him inside.  Pepper and Jane were on him instantly, babying the boy until he was covered in blankets, hot water bottles and Darcy was on nose wiping duty. Clint snuck off and went back to properly check the energy monitor and fuse box, screwing the lid back on until he was sure no one could get to it. 

In a matter of two days Reed became Rainbow Dorm’s newest inhabitant.  The boy was practically beside himself. Him? In the same house as Tony Stark!? There had to be some misunderstanding. But there was a catch-he was now joint baby with Charles, which consisted of constant mothering from the maternal panel of Rainbow Dorm. Everyone teased them about it, and they complained mercilessly, but secretly they all really loved it. 

The time finally came when it was the night before the Christmas Party. The football trio, who’d become even more frequent at their house, were once more staying over, now Sam having the guest room completely to himself as Bucky was sharing with Rhodey. Steve went up to Tony’s bedroom and they sat together watching the Dark Knight rises (because Christian Bale is fucking hawt). As the movie came to a close, Tony gave Steve a sly side look, smirking at the seemingly clueless blonde.

“Steve…how tired are you?” he asked, appearing innocent.

The boy smiled, an evil sort of grin. “Not so tired that I can’t take my boyfriend out for a spin.” He replied, winking.

"I'm not your goddamn chevvy Steve, you either fuck me or you don't, you do not "take me out for a spin"!" Tony  snapped, but he relaxed nonetheless and let the process begin. My boyfriend. Yeah, he liked the sound of that. 


	12. Rotten Mistletoe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Part 1 of the Christmas Parties! Part 2 is coming to a computer near you soon! Hopefully tomorrow after I come back from SUPER SHOW 5!!!! Any K-Pop fans out there willing to fangirl with me?  
> Also AO3 user Sorceress_Supreme, wherever you are, this chapter is for you! :> YOU BETTER LIKE IT!!!! <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS PLEASE READ THIS I NEED YOUR HELP/OPINION.  
> Okay SO you've probably noticed the intense list of relationship tags I have in my attempt at writing a fic with so many ships (I think I've done okay so far...I hope!) But, it seemed I have missed out on someone rather important.  
> SAMMY.  
> SO, since I never really shipped Falcon with anyone and am planning to do so within my fic, here are the possible options:  
> 1) Logan, 2) Emma Frost, 3) Johnny Storm (but he might go with Wanda) 4) New character achieved by hours spent on Marvel Database 5) I kinda wanted him to go with Natasha? Like then Pepper could go with Johnny and Wanda could...go gay for Emma Frost. Interesting couple. But yeah, what do you think? Ditch the Natasha/Pepper thing and go for Sam/Natasha or not?  
> Let me know what you think! Thanks :D

 

Fury watched the sparse number of students turned up for the Christmas Ball. He knew this was going to happen, but what with Heimlich and Grete Schmidt’s violent blackmail, this wasn’t really something he could have denied. They would never get caught either, so it was no point even starting to build a case against them. Hill and Coulson looked equally as disturbed as they awkwardly stood next to each other, engaging in the usual dull inter co-worker small talk. He watched as Johann Schmidt, the stem for all these commodities, grab a beautiful girl and drag her onto the dance floor. Even from his far off position he could see the poor girl wincing as he dug his fingers into her hips. Fury shook his head and decided it was high time for another glass of punch and an appearance of his hip flask.

\--

“Okay guys, lights? Cameras? Then we’re ready for the action!” Elektra announces as the interior of Rainbow Dorm was transformed in preparation for the party. There were strings of tinsel draped over the doors, with mistletoe hanging from all the potential making out spots, but these were only small accessories compared to the large tree standing proudly in the living room, complete with a little robot fairy on top (courtesy of Tony). The bar was stocked with drinks and there were platters of finger food laid out on the various kitchen islands. All perishables were locked away of course, as well as most of the bedrooms such that the guests would only be able to go where the administrators of Rainbow Dorm wanted them to go. They weren’t expecting too large a number, what with most students returning home, but they still prepared for a considerable amount.

The first “guests” to arrive where Susan Storm and Alicia Masters, coming to join the boyfriend and brother who had come earlier to help set up. Upon entry, Sue had spent more than a good few minutes staring at Reed Richards, as he had been given the Jessica Drew treatment in clothing. He was generally quite tall and lanky, and hardly took up much space-which is why people tended not to notice him. But tonight, he would be seen for miles in the tight red leather pants clasped around his thin and shapely legs, with a V-neck white t-shirt snugly fitting his torso, accompanied by a little black waistcoat. The look was completed with two black fingerless gloves and a moderation on Tony Stark’s “eternal sex hair” do.

“Reed…you look…wow…” She was lost for words taking in the sight of the boy. He’d turned from the little dorky acne covered nerd in school into this…ravishingly handsome man.

“Hi Sue.” He replied, a new sort of confidence taking him. Pepper smiled at the couple and slowly closed the corridor door to give them some privacy as more guests started to arrive. Tony and Steve were manning the DJ decks and everything was just falling perfectly into place. She felt happy and calm, for once, and she knew she looked equally as stunning in her sparkly red one piece. She certainly had a feeling tonight was going to be a good night.

\--

Wanda continued to wince as Johann turned her around the dance floor, the tight silky dress he’d bought her cutting into her skin. He’d said this was the size she was supposed to be and that she clearly needed to lose some weight since the dress didn’t fit her. And now the material was rubbing against the bruises on her body, the result of countless forceful entries and rough hands. Her shoes were worse, digging into her toes and in some cases, cutting through the skin. The song thankfully finished and she practically ran to the drinks stall-well, it was more of a frantic limp really, the best that could be managed in those heels. She didn’t care; she was just desperate to break away from that tyrant.

Peggy and Erik were standing by the punch bowl, both having reluctantly agreed to go with each other. She wanted to go to Rainbow Dorm, but she knew there was a very high chance she wouldn’t be very well…accepted there. Not with the way Sharon behaves anyway. The older of the Carter twins was attending the ball with football terrorist Gunther. They seemed to make a good couple-in that both parties were getting what they wanted. Peggy couldn’t begin to express her discomfort at her sister’s choices, coming from a prestigious British family. But, as she quotes the girl in question herself, it’s Sharon’s life, not hers. Sadly.

“Hey Peggy, are you enjoying the ball??” Wanda walked up to her, grabbing a cup of the punch.

“Indeed Wanda, however you seem rather uncomfortable.” She said smoothly, raising an eyebrow at Wanda’s feet.

“Oh, I-I’m alright. How about you Erik?” She said, quickly changing the subject. Erik briefly looked up, gave her a small smile and returned to looking philosophically into the bottom of his cup.

“He’s enjoying it too. He’s just feeling a little…under the weather.” Peggy said, rolling her eyes. They continued to stand in silence, left to their own thoughts. Wanda nervously sipped at her drink, dreading the moment Johann was next going to ambush her. She was enjoying the moments of peace until a pair of hands enveloped her eyes. She tensed, anticipating the hands to move to squeeze her hips since it wouldn’t be anyone else. Any boy who valued their life wouldn’t touch her if they knew what was good for them, not as long as she was with Johann. Instead, a voice whispered in her ear. “Hello little sister.” She gasped and turned, attacking the boy behind her in a hug, kicking of the uncomfortable pair of shoes in the process.

“Pietro! What are you doing here?” She exclaimed, kissing his cheek. This was the first time in years her and her brother had been separated since Pietro had been invited to attend a world class university known to produce some of the best athletes in the world. He had always been the fastest child in school, and his speed had become almost nationally acclaimed. So of course, when an offer like this came up, there was no way he would deny it. The only downside was that he was away from Wanda. But at least he’d managed to make it for Christmas.

“Mom and Dad wrote to me and so I decided to drop by to see you” He said, gently lowering her down.

“Pietro. Always a pleasure to see you.” Johann materialized next to them, stiff as usual and clearly uncomfortable with Wanda’s apparent happiness. Pietro’s eyes narrowed.

“Schmidt, so I see you’re still dating my sister.” He turned to Wanda, coming between her and the stoic German. “I thought we agreed you guys would be over.”

She was lost for words. “I-uh, well you see-“

“I cannot help it if your sister is so smitten for me, and as you know, I am very possessive over my prizes.” Johann said, separating the brother and sister and pulling Wanda to him. She winced again with a sharp intake of breath & Pietro instantly knew what was going on.

“My sister is not a possession, Mr Schmidt, and if you truly valued her, you would acknowledge that. Come on Wanda, let’s get out of here. I didn’t fly all the way over here for nothing.” He said, offering his hand to the girl. She smiled, reaching for it when Johann pulled her back.

“That is for her to decide, clearly she is happy here.” He stated, confident in his words.

“No Johann, this has been going on way too long. I don’t want this anymore, I want to be respected!” She said angrily, now gathering everyone’s attention.

“Wanda, what did we discuss about public etiquette, do not make me repeat it again.” Johann said, his voice turning eerily quiet.

“No I think this public venue is the perfect place for this. So everyone sees what a total douche you are!” She screamed. Everyone was watching now, Wanda took a look, satisfied she had everyone’s attention before starting to unzip her dress.

“Wanda-Wanda, what’re you doing?”

“People need to see this.” She muttered, lowering the puffy dress to the floor so she was standing nothing but her bra and underskirt. But now everyone could see, the ugly brown patches scattered her middle.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, imma go get me some Maccy Ds. And yes Johann, it will be fried, full fat, with a large milkshake and I will make sure to lick the oil of each chip because I don’t need a good for nothing abusive boyfriend who starves me because I’m not thin enough for him!” She picked up the dress and walked off, only stopping to beckon Pietro to follow.

He smiled, that's the little sister he knows and loves.  “Laterz Schmidt.”

“Peace out bitches!” She yelled, “Oh and sorry Professors! Have a good Christmas!” She called, leaving the sports hall.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you dump your boyfriend. 


	13. Cinderella Lehnsherr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow guys. Guess who's back? Yup, me! I hope you will enjoy this chapter. I have had a very rough month, and now I am studying for exams-but I still had time to write a lil something for y'all! Consider it your Christmas present from me. And if I don't update until that day-Merry Christmas from me! Hope you guys have a wonderful time and get all that you wish for <3
> 
> ~~Also you might want to re-read chapter 11 because I changed a few things~~

\--

“Erik…Eee~riiik~….ERIK LEHNSHERR!” Peggy called, finally catching the boy’s attention. “For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together!” She snapped, though it was more of a harsh whisper. She didn’t want to be heard in the now awkward silence that had followed Wanda’s tantrum. But good on her, Peggy really thought everyone deserved to see that. Ah, if only her sister could follow such an amicable example. It would ease a burden on both her and her parents’ minds. But right now she had a much larger task at hand.

“I’m sorry Peggy.” He mumbled-pathetic, for an all-star toughie football player-she’d seen what he could do. This sort of behaviour was childish and impractical. He had spent the past five minutes staring longingly at the Rainbow Dorm Christmas party brochure that was plastered to the wall. More specifically, one particular face on said brochure. And Peggy was willing to bet money as to who he was looking at.

“I did not adorn myself in uncomfortable jewels just to spend a night in a third rate ball with a menstruating gorilla! Now,” She began, a sly smile forming on her elegant face. “I know you want to meet Mr Xavier-our families are very close, both being of British origin therefore I do have knowledge of your affiliation with him. And I want to go to a place where there is a little bit more…fun. Open invitation, one night only. I’d say our options are limited and our path is clear.” She finished, now face to face with Erik. The boy swallowed, more than a little intimidated by Peggy’s perfectly articulated deduction.

“Y-Yes ma’am.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Let’s leave.” She grabbed his hand and calculated a safe path out of the building. Dean Fury was standing next to the back door of the sports hall, clearly preparing to meet one of the Professors-probably professor Coulson, for a smoke. She cut across the dance floor, ducking behind the bar before they ran to the door. Dean Fury nodded at them before opening the door, letting them pass.

“Lucky call. I ain’t got your freedom.” He mumbled, stepping out himself just as Coulson arrived. Peggy legged it out of the main campus,  Erik in tow, straight down the path to Student village. They were halfway to the gate when her feet began to pack up. Consequences of wearing high heels.

“Hang on a tick, let me just take these stupid things off.” She said, prising the straps off the Jimmy Choos hugging her feet. Thankfully, being the prepared woman she was, her bag contained a pair of socks just in case this sort of situation was to arise, and soon they were on their way, the sound of a loud bass soon reaching their ears. Destination in sight, ETA five minutes.

\--

Not even one hour in and people were already drunk, the Christmas Party had really lived up to all the expectations Tony could ever have had about it. He was circulating around with platters of food and drinks, before giving up entirely and just throwing himself into the throng of things. Steve rarely left his side, and it was something he could only be thankful of really. The boy was a gorgeous comfort, even more so today in his red button down and god, he thinks Carol got to him with the hair crimper because his usually combed blonde locks now lay in haphazard fashion about his head as thick tousled curls. Sweet baby Jesus. Literally. He noticed Pepper and Natasha dancing together out on the “dance floor” they’d made their patio into, Elektra and Maria close by-with Elektra guiding of course. Maria was so lucky she had someone she could trust to help her through despite her disadvantage. Thor and Jane were the perfect High School couple, locked in a long embrace with a slow dance, in a similar fashion to Carol and Jess currently lip-locked behind them. Clint was feeding Bruce some of the snacks, giving him a little kiss on the nose after each bite and Charles was doing the jitterbug with Darcy. It honestly made his heart melt to see the members of his dorm so happy. The cherry on the cake was when he saw Rhodey and Bucky laughing together, and despite the interaction seemingly platonic, he could clearly see the adoration in their eyes.

He continued his rounds of the house, checking on all the rooms and people, making sure no one was sick.

“Hey Tony, don’t you want to enjoy the party? You’ve just been walking around all evening.” Steve said, finding the boy spreading out new bin bags.

“Oh I am enjoying it, y’know just thought I’d get the house in shape too. Why don’t you go get me a nice drink? I’m parched!” He said. Steve nodded and walked off, fulfilling both of Tony’s motives. He continued to organise the kitchen area, hardly noticing the footsteps behind him.

“Well well well Anthony, we meet again.” And once more the terrifying suave voice of one not welcome bombarded the ears of poor Prince Anthony Stark. He got up, turning to face his challenger.

“Loki, what the ever loving fuck are you doing here?” He said, glaring at the boy-once again decked out in green. His usually permed back black hair was now in layers around his face, giving him a very “rock star” look. He sported a tight olive green button down tucked into velvet looking black slacks, finished with a pair of lime green Chuck Taylors. Well then, that was one thing he’d certainly learned from Tony. The brilliance of Converse.

“Was this not an open invitation, permitting anyone to join?” He said, accompanied by his usual eerie toothy grin.

“Yeah well I thought it would be pretty obvious on the status of _your_ invitation.” He said, crossing his arms and attempting to seem a little more confident. The leather on his arms tightened, emphasising the little muscle he’d built up. Jess had, once again, decked him in a full leather outfit. At least this time his shirt wasn’t bumblebee yellow and practically screaming “fuck me”. No today, he had his favourite “Flash” t-shirt on, Jess apparently deemed the red and black combo to work quite well, the leather jacket framed the lightning symbol very nicely.

“Ah Anthony, why must we continue to play these games? I am always going to be a constant in your life, you cannot condemn me forever.”

“I can get a restraining order.” He said, grinding his teeth.

“And what good would that do?” Loki replied. “We are sons of men who are affiliated with criminal masterminds. Hardly any value a restraining order would hold in our world.” Ah, Tony forgot sometimes that he was a billionaire and all of his friends were too.

Loki took a few steps towards him until they were face to face, and grabbed Tony’s shirt. “I meant what I said Stark, you can’t hide from me. And I won’t stop until you are mine.” Loki’s face closed in until there was barely a few centimetres between them. The sight of those pale lips alone surfaced horrible memories of raised hands, bruises, tears and endless bouts of agony and pain. Loki’s other arm travelled to Tony’s, gripping it in a death grip, squeezing until it was painful. Loki licked his lips and exhaled straight onto Tony’s face. Whether it was meant to be erotic or not was left unsaid. And for not the first time since this year had started, Tony felt defenceless and weak. Unable to say or do anything.

“Are you not enjoying this? Is this not simpler, _better_?” He whispered.

“Excuse me boys is there a problem here?” Steve, glorious beautiful Steve, knight in shining armour, his very own Superman had flown in to save the day. Oh that totally made him Lois Lane, currently cornered by Lex Luthor himself most likely.

“Yes everything is fine now if you’ll excuse me I am conversing with my boyfriend. You are free to take your leave.” Loki spat, before turning back to Tony.

Steve set his jaw and grabbed Loki by the shoulder, wrenching him off Tony in what was a harsh yet graceful action.

“Listen here buddy cuz I’m only gonna say this once, you leave him alone-not just now, you leave him alone forever until he says otherwise. And if you so much as _dare_ to come near him or attempt to hurt him, I’m gonna re-arrange that slimy little face of yours myself.” Steve sneered, hands still gripping Loki’s bony shoulders, locking him in place. To prove his point, the large pounders were on Loki’s jaw next, pulling his pale face forward until he was directly in front of Steve. “Am I understood?” He growled. Tony swallowed. That should really not be sexy. That should _so_ not be as sexy as it was.

Loki jerked his head in affirmation. “Y-yes, I shall take my leave.” Steve nodded, and dropped the boy to the ground. Loki quickly glanced between Tony and Steve, before running off back into the crowd at the party.

“Oh…my…sweet…jesus….Steve, that was…amazing. And so _hot_.” He said. “It shouldn’t be hot should it? That’s just me being weird right?”

Steve smirked. “That was the intention.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. Wow…Steve was playing a dangerous game right there. “Damn you!” He said, and stormed out, joining the party. Steve smiled after him. Ah, sexually frustrated Tony really was the best Tony.

Fantasies aside, Tony felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. Now that he knew Steve was protecting him, he really didn’t need to worry about his abusive, disgusting ex-boyfriend again. Who else had that privilege? He doubted anyone could boast such a thing. Well…unless you were a Disney princess, but that’s a separate issue for another day.

“Tony! May I speak with you?” H turned to find Thor walking towards him in all his majestic and muscular glory, blonde hair flowing over his shoulders. “I must apologise for my brother’s behaviour. I wish I had been able to stop him sooner in his abuse against you-“

“Thor, buddy, don’t sweat it. ‘Sides, I have a feeling he won’t be trying to get to me for a while.” Tony said, patting the huge boulder of an arm.

Thor smiled, “I hope at least now I have earned your friendship, as I had not in the past.” It was true, when Loki and Tony were dating, he barely got a chance to talk to Thor-and if he did, it was brief, rushed and often very curt. Mostly because Loki would just whisk Tony away to his bedroom; and he leaves it to everyone else’s imagination to guess what went on in there. But Thor was a great guy, and let’s be honest; underneath all of that muscle? He was just one massive teddy bear.

“Oh yeah, dude we’re tight!” he said, mimicking the familiar gesture.

“Thor, I am lost! I do not know anyone here!” A pretty blonde woman materialised next to Thor, looking utterly lost and extremely uncomfortable. She was bulky, but not in an obvious way. Her legs showed clear athleticism, strong and stiff calf muscles leading her muscular thighs. Her dress was Emerald green, made in a skater fashion with a leaf pattern on the material, matching the gems in her ears. All in all, a very elegant ensemble pulled of magnificently by her curvy figure (but in the mind of Tony, nothing on his Steve).

“Then allow me to introduce myself.” Tony said, messing up his already messy hair. “Tony Stark, I own this joint, pleasure to make your acquaintance, love.” He offered his hand out with a sleazy wink, and the girl quickly looked to Thor before taking it.

“I am Brunnhilde, I am a friend of Thor’s from Norway. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Stark. At least that is one name I am familiar with.” She replied in crisp yet accented English. Well there was no surprise. Practically _everyone_ knew who the Starks were.

“Yo Tony! I was wonderin’ where you’d got to-oh hello.” Sam Wilson happened to choose that moment to materialise next to Tony, freezing as his eyes settled on the girl in front of him.  Brunnhilde regarded this newcomer with interest, whispering something in Norwegian to Thor, to which he replied-also in Norwegian-until they were locked in their own conversation, never taking their eyes off Tony and Sam.

“So Sammy boy, enjoying the party?” He clapped Sam’s shoulder, regretting this decision almost immediately because it was like punching a frozen brick wall.

“Oh yeah! Came to tell ya how rad it was. That gin blackcurrant stuff? Really good!”  

“I’m glad you liked it man.” Tony said, smiling, waiting for Thor and Brunnhilde to stop so he could force her to talk to Sam. It was clear there was some chemistry right there. And he intended to see it through.

“Oh Sam! This is Brunnhilde, she’s come from Norway so she doesn’t really know many people around here, why don’t you show her the ropes? Sam’s really social. He knows _everybody_. Stick with him, you’ll find yourself with friends and familiar faces in no time!” Tony said, pushing the now nervous boy toward the equally nervous girl. Thor muttered something to her in Norwegian, before meeting up with Jane and continuing onto the dance floor. Tony winked and disappeared, willing himself to find Steve.

“So…uh…hi. I’m Sam…”

\--

Darcy had found herself a comfortable seat in the kitchen in which she had access to both booze and food. Charles had disappeared, so she’d lost her dancing partner, which rendered her quite alone, since most of her friends were off somewhere probably getting laid.

She was just tucking into her second pot of humus when someone very loudly cleared their throat behind her.

“Can I help you?” She turned around, taking a loud bite into her carrot stick.

“Yes, well I was looking for some company.” Darcy froze, in front of her stood Peggy Carter, possibly the most attractive girl she’d ever laid eyes on and possibly one of the main reasons her sheets were constantly in the wash.

Darcy swallowed, “Oh well, ya definitely came to the right place! I’m company all over. Here, take a seat, would you like a carrot stick?” She said, cursing herself for how nervous the jumble of words sounded.

“That would be agreeable.” Peggy pushed herself up onto the kitchen counter next to Darcy, gently peeling off a pair of socks from her feet. She paused briefly, “You don’t mind do you? Since we are in a food environment and all?”

“Oh no, go ahead, take off your socks all you want. We ain’t got a health inspector comin’” She said, continuing to nervously bite carrots.

Peggy smiled and took the little garments off, revealing her very red and swollen feet.

“Gosh, those don’t look so good. What the hell were you wearing?”

“Killer high heels. Courtesy of my sister.” She replied, rolling her eyes. “I shall never allow her to dress me again!”

“Bummer. You seem really dolled up for a joint like this.” Darcy said, then internally cringed because that is _so_ not how you talk to someone. “I mean-you look amazing, really.” She said, and she meant it. Peggy had a wraparound floor length dress in a chocolate brown colour to match her hair and eyes. Not including the gorgeous brown lipstick she was wearing. It was enough to send a shudder down anyone’s spine.

Peggy smiled. “Well I came from the ball. It proved to be…rather uneventful.” She stated. The Wanda gossip would get around soon enough anyway.

“Well that’s what you get for going to a shithouse like that.” She said, snorting. They lapsed into a silence,  Darcy idly drawing in the humus pot.

“It truly is a lovely place you have here. I didn’t want to believe anything until I’d seen it for myself.”

“Oh yah?”

“People had been spreading all sorts of rumours, most of theme kind. Some awful. But I think you can fathom the origin of _those_.” She said with a small sigh. “I just wish to stay focused on my studies really. I don’t usually find the time to care about these sorts of things.”

“Oh yeah totally. I mean, what  douches. We should really just focus on our studies.” She said, nodding even though it had been her spreading a lot of those rumours. What can she say? Rainbow Pride.

“Darcy, it is rather loud here, do you perhaps have somewhere quieter we could converse?” She said, stretching back, giving Darcy a beautiful view of her tanned arms, as the muscles on her necked popped.

“U-uh, you want to converse? W-with me?” She said, again cursing herself for sounding so weak.

“Well, that is how one gets to make acquaintance with others, is it not?” She said, tilting her head. “I would certainly like to converse with you.”

“Y-yeah! Yeah, sure it is. And I would know that best huh?” Darcy was pretty sure there were insanely large droplets of sweat probably making their way down her neck, but now was not the time to chicken out. Just like the last time she’d tried to get someone into her bed. That was an experience she _never_ wanted to recount.

“Well I would assume so. Are you going to show me the way? “

Darcy swallowed. This was a most unexpected turn of events. She was being asked, to go to her bedroom, by a very attractive girl. She could do this.

“Uhm yeah, follow me!” She said, grabbing Peggy’s hand. She quickly checked the coast was clear before pulling her now giggling accomplice along. Her room was on the third floor along with the other girl, which meant they would have to navigate through three flights of people. Definitely considering asking Tony to install an elevator.  They finally made it to the top floor, where Darcy carefully lead the girl to her bedroom.

“We’re here! Home sweet home.” She said, still nervous as she lead Peggy in. “So what did you want to talk about?”

Peggy smirked, looking around. “Oh I can think of a few things…”

\--

“Charles.” Charles Xavier jumped out of his skin as the familiar husky baritone appeared behind him. He almost dropped his rainbow (ha) cocktail, a little bit of the fruity liquid spilling onto his hand.

“Eh-Erik.” He said, making himself presentable. He needed  to seem confident. Hell, he was confident. He could to this. “What on earth are you doing here?” He said, looking straight into those steely green eyes. They were usually the height of intimidation, but today they looked nervous and scared. Nothing like what Erik was usually like.

“The ball was a pile of shit. We left before it could get any worse.” He replied, grabbing a glass of orange juice. Surprisingly without alcohol. That was certainly a first.

“Yes well that’s what happens when you affiliate with those sorts.” He said, quoting his mother. “What are you really doing here Erik?”

“I came to apologise.”

“Of course you did.” Charles said, well aware of Erik’s little act. He turned around and started to head for the kitchen, manoeuvring through the dancers who seemed very unfazed at Erik’s presence.

“Charles I’m serious!” Erik said, carefully looking around to make sure no one was watching.

Charles sighed. “That, right there, is why we will never work Erik. You put your image and your reputation above yourself. You can’t stand up to your parents. You have always made sure I remembered that I was weaker than you, but really who’s the weak one here? Me, or you?” He said, before stalking off to the other part of the house, praying Erik didn’t follow. Fair enough, that might have been a _little_ harsh. He knew how hard it was. But he was tired of giving him second chances, tired of getting his heart broken. Tired of getting disappointed.  Yet he was still so passionately in love with the douchebag who ruined his life. And Erik had seemed sincere….No. No he would not let his heart rule his head once again. He wasn’t going to dip a toe into that emotional cesspool. No, he was going to move on. And if Erik truly wanted him back? Well, he was going to need a lot more than one apology to convince him.

\--

The hours passed by within the blink of an eye, and soon 10 oclock melded into 11 oclock which suddenly became 2am. The night had been a huge success, no one got too drunk (well…not dangerously anyway) and for the most part everyone seemed to have had a good time. At quarter to 3 Pepper decided it was high time they kicked everyone out, and made sure to talk to everyone as they left-just safety checks really. She did _not_ want to wake up to find puke in the bushes.

She was showered with compliments all around-often with people going home having found a new partner. And hopefully ones that would last more than that single night. Finally, when she was sure the last person had left, she ventured back into the house. Of course the living room and kitchen were in an absolute mess, but that was nothing they couldn’t solve the next day. It was eerily silent too, and so she decided a quick round of the house was in order.

“Hey Peps, you heading up?” Tony came and grabbed her from behind, pulling her into a hug.

“Tony! Yes, just gonna check on the others before-hand. What about you?”

“Oh me and Steve-“

“Steve and I!”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Me and Steve’re gonna have a few drinks, see you in the morning yeah?”

She nodded, “Yep, see you in the morning.” Tony winked and walked off into the kitchen/bar area, and Pepper made her way to her first stop-the guest room. She knocked gently, pressing her ear to the door. There was silence save for the occasional breath and the squeak of the old bed. Well, no need to check in there then. That would be Sam and Brunnhilde then. The rooms after that were pretty quiet, and anything Pepper did happen to hear, she kept to herself until she made it back into her own little haven, and slowly crept into her welcoming bed.

Meanwhile Tony was just spilling the guts of a particularly weighty bottle of scotch that his Uncle had sent him (this was the Uncle Greg who gave baby Tony Bailey’s instead of milk), when Steve’s arms wrapped around his waist, his neck snuggling into Tony’s shoulder.

“Hey.”

“Hey there yourself.” He said, turning around with Steve’s glass. They briefly clinked their glasses together before taking simultaneous sips. Tony turned to place the tumbler down, mouth open in anticipation to say something to Steve when he found his face being yanked forwards, and two hot lips claimed his own. His eyes briefly flashed up to the ceiling where he noticed a stray sprig of mistletoe hanging from above, and he sighed into Steve's mouth before his eyes sheathed and he let himself relax. 

It wasn’t the first time-but hell, every time with Steve felt like a first time. The distinct taste of whisky filtered into his mouth, and he sighed with added content, his foot even rising a little off the ground (he felt like Mia from the Princess Diaries). And suddenly, it was like every romantic movie suddenly made sense. Because he finally understood what it felt like to be the only two people in the world, like they were floating in empty space without even the stars to crowd their company. Almost like the world made sense.

Eugh. Okay that was enough sappiness for one kiss. Anymore and he would probably be nauseated. Though having said that, he was so caught up in the tangle of his chapped lips on Steve’s over-vaselined ones, that he didn’t notice the other presence in the room. His eyes were closed, and his ears were ringing, completely cut off to the sight of a flash and the sound of a shutter. 


	14. Father of the Bride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ooh shit's about to go down. This chapter wasn't as well done as I hope it would be, but it's just setting the scene for the next part.  
> It's sad, I can feel the end of Rainbow Dorm approaching. Well, until then!  
> (I wasn't meant to write a chapter before Christmas...but...oops I got bitten by a writing bug!)

“Shh shh shut up! We have to be careful!”

“Oh come on this is something to panic about; if he wakes up startled he can just join us!”

“Guys! Put a sock in it! Tony…Tony, sweetie, please wake up. It’s the 1st of January; it’s the New Year, a new start-y’know, the one you’d always been waiting for?” Tony slowly opened his eyes and let the light of his bedroom filter through. There were shapes, shapes that usually weren’t there, voices and an unusual amount of both body heat and the stench that came with it.

“Guys? Wh-what are you doing here? Did I drink too much last night?” He slowly sat up, but his head was fine. So no hangover then. Their little New Year’s bash had been nothing on the Christmas Party, but it was sweet and just what they needed. Too bad Steve, Bucky and Sam had been forced to stay at Jock Dorm. Or as they had now taken to re-naming it; “Kock Dorm”. The Wanda news had filtered into their ears too, and now Johann had lost even more respect than before. But yet again, they were met with a grim reminder that he was still (miraculously) Captain of their University Football team, and that he did still call the shots. Even if the main championship was months away.  So they’d just spent a quiet night in watching all the home alone movies with the occasional drink and a lot of Pizza. And now, for some reason, they decided to congregate around Tony’s bed. Something was up.

“Tony…we don’t know how to tell you this…” Elektra began, but Rhodey silenced her.

“Guys…I think it would be best if Pep and I talked to Tony. Don’t get me wrong, you all mean a lot to him, but we’ve known him for a long time.”

“What!? What the hell’s going on you guys?!” Tony interjected, seriously worried.

Rhodey looked to Pepper, earning her affirmation. “I think this is one thing where we’re going to need a little time to ourselves.” 

The others nodded in silence with a few grumbles, but eventually walked out of the room, gently closing the door. Tony was glaring at them. He hated secrets.

“Tony…sweetie…remember the Christmas Party?”

“Yes how could I forget?” He said, highly suspicious.

“Well remember when you and Steve were just having “drinks”?” She continued, swallowing. Oh crap. Someone must’ve seen him and Steve making out and told her! But wait…why did they wait so long? How come they were only confronting him now? No…that wasn’t it. If it had been a simple case of him hiding a relationship, they would be joking and teasing him. He could see that Pepper was seriously affected by whatever horrid thing had happened. Rhodey too. And if these two, also known as the strongest people in his life, were shitfaced-where did that leave him?

“Look I swear I meant to tell you-“

“It’s not that. Tony bro, you know we’re cool with that. It’s just…we got mailed a copy of this in the morning.” Rhodey handed him a large envelope. “And since none of us reads this trash, we could only assume someone was sending it to us by spite. You’ll see what I mean once you look at the cover.”

Tony frowned and opened the white envelope, slipping out its contents. Inside was a copy of “Jean Grey” gossip magazine. At first nothing hit him. -until he noticed the picture on the left hand corner. A very familiar picture of him wrapped around Steve under a sprig of mistletoe. He was hit with a tornado of Déjà vu. God it was like Loki all over again. The caption read “Straight as a Stark”. Tony groaned and threw the offending object across his bed, wrapping himself up in blanket.

“We’re sorry Tony. We had no idea who took it.” Pepper said, climbing into the bed with him. She took his head into her lap, gently rubbing circles onto his forehead. Rhodey took his other side, squeezing his shoulder. What a sight they must be, Tony sandwiched in between his two best friends. But there was nowhere else, and no one else who could’ve comforted him at that moment. Well no doubt having his Mom and Jarvis would be brilliant too, but this was just perfect.

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours before they were interrupted when the phone rang. Tony had spent majority of that time crying into Pepper’s lavender smelling jumper, and Rhodey had given him a very unmanly hug.  They all had intercom handsets in their rooms-connected to main University network too. That’s why people used their mobiles, since almost any conversation taking place on those phones were recorded.

Rhodey picked it up. “Hello? Yes this is unit 68.” Each house had its own number-but most people ignored that. They were Rainbow Dorm, but their official name was Unit 68 (being the 68th house from the front gates of Student Village to the back).

“Front office? In an hour? Yes he’ll be there-yes I’ll tell him. Thank you.” Rhodey put it down, both Tony and Pepper transfixed on his expression.

He sighed, “Tony you’ve been summoned to the front office, Dean Fury wants to speak to you. You have to get there in an hour.” He flashed his crooked smile, but it was sad too.

“Well, better get you ready then.” Pepper said, stroking Tony’s hair. “I’ll go pick out something nice.” She walked over to his wardrobe and looked through his clothes. “You’ll probably want to be formal, won’t you?  Or maybe a smart casual? I’d say black jeans and a nice white shirt with your dinner jacket should be nice? Or even better, your superman t-shirt! And I bought you a new jacket at the end of year sale that would go really nicely.” She mused, trying to make light of the situation. She grabbed the pieces of clothes and laid them out them bed, smoothing the fabric over.

“Right well, I better get dressed then.” Tony said, wiping his nose. He slowly got out of the bed and padded over to his bathroom for a shower, slamming the door.

“What’re we going to do?” She said, looking up to meet Rhodey’s eyes.

“I don’t know. The article just says something about the Stark boy finally cracking…” He continued to scan the piece of text. “Rogers has defied his parents’ wishes of a moral lifestyle for choosing to love a man. The reaction of his father is yet to be destined. Shit, I’ve heard that Rogers wasn’t exactly the nicest guy to be around. He’ll probably give Steve hell for this.”

Pepper nodded slowly. “I guess all we can really do is wait, and support Tony through this. I just hope Mr Rogers goes easy on him.”

“Forget that, what about when Howard finds out?” He said, sitting on the bed. “There’s no way he’d accept Tony after this. He got Tony out of quite a few pickles when he was younger, but we know that he was never really happy with it all-we saw what he put Tony through for, well, being Tony.”

“That’s why he needs us. We’ll talk to Maria and Jarvis, they’ll help us. We’re going to see Tony through this.” She said. It was almost like the more she confirmed her support, the more confident she felt about helping her best friend.

The bathroom door opened and Tony emerged in nothing but a towel. He hadn’t bothered to shave, and his hair was still standing up like he was permanently hooked to an electric source. The way Pepper and Rhodey stilled told him they had been talking about him, but that hardly mattered.

“Tony…aren’t you going to do something about your hair? And you have 3 day stubble!”

“I know. But I figured, if they’re going to give me the boot, I’d rather turn up as my usual self than as something else. I didn’t become a beacon of rebellion and equality for nothing. This is my title, and damn if I’m not going to fulfil it!” He said. It was an almost extremely un-Tony like thing to say, but his determination was illuminating. “I’m like Katniss. I’m the Mockingjay. And there’s nothing they can do to stop me.” He said, flashing them a grin.

Pepper grinned, consuming him into a loving hug. If Tony was happy and confident, then so was she. Rhodey joined the group hug, rubbing Tony’s back.

“We’re in this together Tones, all of us.”

“You better get dressed!” Pepper exclaimed, shoving clothes at him. He chuckled  and stretched the shirt over his head, dropping the towel.

“Tony!”

“I’m wearing boxers! Oh please Pep, you know you love it. C’mon Rhodey, come and get some~” He sang as both his friends turned away in disgust. He was dressed in a matter of minutes, just clasping his Superman belt. “A little hero overdose don’t you think?”

“You wanted to go as yourself, this has you all over!” Pepper said, pulling out something from one of his drawers.

They finally exited the room. Everyone was spread around the house in various positions. They watched the trio leave wordlessly. Tony took a deep breath before they made the walk up to the main building.

“You guys didn’t have to come y’know.”

“And you’re an idiot; of course we were going to come with you!” Rhodey said. “You’re a massive pain in the ass, but we’d be lost without you.” He said, smiling. And that was the best compliment a guy could ever get.

The rest of the walk was silence as the weight of the events slowly started to settle on Tony. Now he really could compensate with Atlas, holding up the goddamn sky.

Soon the cast iron gates loomed in front of them, intimidating both in colour and height. Being electrically operated, they gave the effect of opening off their own accord. The three of them linked hands before walking onto the campus.

The whole area was silent. The students rarely visited the main buildings and colleges during the holiday, so it was deserted. Plus everyone was probably suffering from a hangover by now. They navigated their way to the front office where Dean Fury’s secretary was waiting for them.

“Just Mr Stark please, you two are free to leave.” She said, not looking up from her tablet.

Rhodey gave her a curt nod before quickly giving Tony a hug and a punch in the shoulder. Pepper dug her hand into her pocket producing something small and pinned it onto Tony’s jacket.

“Go get them Mockingjay.” She said, securing the little Hunger Games replica.

“Thanks guys, wish me luck.” He said, regarding his two best friends one last time before heading into the dog house.

“This way Mr Stark, if you would please wait outside his office.” She said, her heels clacking against the tiles of the floor. She stalked into her office, leaving Tony to hover at the door.

At first there was silence, giving him time to collect his thoughts, before the sound of raised voices rang through the walls of one of the neighbouring classrooms. There were a few classrooms in the building itself-generalized ones for visiting lectures and demonstrations. The specialized ones like labs and IT suites were in the surrounding colleges. He quietly walked over to investigate, cowering near the door.

“Goddamit Sarah, I will not have a damn faggot for a son! I’m tellin’ ya it came from your side of the family!” A man's voice. It was loud, deep and probably one of the most terrifying tonal qualities Tony had ever heard. 

"Ian!" A woman's voice. She sounded hysterical and her voice was rough, like her throat was course. 

“Dad just liste-" The unmistakeably gorgeous voice of Steve, but it was shaky. He was probably crying. 

“Shut the fuck up, you don’t have the right to speak, you little shit.”

“Ian! Do not speak to our son like that!”

“He’s no son of mine!”

“Good, because you’re no father of mine if you can’t accept who I am!” That was the first time Tony had ever heard Steve so angry. And he didn’t like it. If this thing went through…if only, he would make sure he’d never do anything to make Steve sound like _that_.

“What did you say to me? Are you back-chatting? Let me teach you a little lesson. Always thought we were too damn lenient on ya.”

“Ian! Ian no stop-IAN!” His mother screeched as the sound of a loud thump echoed out from the classroom, followed by a woman's scream. 

“That’ll teach ya, and if I _ever_ see you near that Stark boy again, I’ll make sure it’s your heart.”

“I-Ian, that wasn’t necessary.”

“I ain’t havin’ a _fag_ running my business! Go fuck a lady like a proper man. Come on Sarah, we better get going.” The door opened and Tony quickly ran away, pretending he was just walking past. 

Ian Rogers was a tall, bulky and well chiselled man with a square jaw and military haircut. Typical. His whole body gave off an aura of pure malice and disgust. And his eyes; they looked manic, homicidal. Sure Howard Stark had been a bad father, but he was a saint compared to Ian Rogers.

Sarah exited next; she was a petite woman with long blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She was wearing a modest spruce green maxi dress with an accompanying fur collar along with glitzy adornments. Clearly the Rogers liked to show off. But Tony was happy that Steve looked like his mother. He’d probably have a heart attack looking into those crazy eyes.

Finally Steve himself came out of the room, and Tony’s heart stopped. His face was bloody and cut where Ian had bashed it against the edge of a desk, a drying red line spreading from the top of his head. He was sporting a black eye, dark and green-ish hues surrounding those brilliant blues. Tony just wanted to take him back home and tell him that everything was going to be okay, that he would be safe there. But there were some issues even Rainbow Dorm couldn’t solve.

“Oi you, listen here punk, you stay away from my son or else I’ll snap that pretty little neck of yours, got it?” Ian grabbed Tony by the front of his shirt, hissing into his face.

Tony nodded, swallowing loudly.

“Ian…you can’t just threaten people!” Sarah said, exasperated. She shot him an apologetic look over her husband’s shoulder, rubbing ferociously at her eyes.

“I can and I will. Stay away from my son.” He walked off, grabbing Sarah’s hand.

“Steve…” Their eyes briefly met, before Steve sharply looked to the floor and shuffled after his parents.

As soon as they were out of sight Tony flung himself against the nearest wall, slipping to the ground. Soon the silence of the corridor was filled with his loud sobs. Again time seemed to slow, until the sound of mismatched footsteps cut across the amplified edition of his broken cries.

“Tony? Tony sweetie oh my god are you okay!” The comforting sound of his mother brought him into reality as she pulled him up and into an embrace. He was engulfed in her familiar scent, the same musky Chanel perfume she’s been wearing for years and one he’d gotten used to associating with comfort. She was dressed similarly to Sarah, in a long red dress with a white fur collar to match. Her favourite set of rubies were in place, and her make-up was as usual, infallible. It was almost hard to believe that her son had just been subject to global ridicule.

“Mom…” He muttered, grabbing onto her.

“I’m here baby; it’s going to be okay.” She stroked his hair, laughing as it just continued to stick out. “You never managed to get that sorted out did you?” She gently kissed his forehead before releasing him, giving him a chance to look upon her companions.

“Jarvis!” The last person he’d expected them to bring was their family butler (hence leaving the mansion unattended/in very incapable hands). Yet here he was, greying hair perfectly styled, black suit, gloves and pocket handkerchief-the whole works.  As perfect as ever.

“Master Stark.” He greeted. It seemed like a small greeting, but for Tony it was everything. He leapt and gave the old man a hug, truly happy to see him. Man, he’d really missed home.

And finally came his least favourite greeting. Howard Stark himself.

“Hey Dad.” Howard looked the same as ever, black suit with a red tie to match Maria’s dress, a rose tucked into his right breast pocket. Perfectly trimmed moustache and parted dyed black hair. Just as slick as he remembered him, not a wrinkle out of place.

“Tony! Don’t I get a hug?” He said, breaking into a smile. Tony’s eyes widened. Howard was drunk-he _had_ to be. His father had never been happy to see him. And especially after what happened, there was no way Howard could be happy.

“Uh….sure Dad.” He wrapped his arms around the man, checking for the stench of booze. A few carefully concealed sniffs later, he got nothing. Now he was seriously confused. He was about to pull off when Howard’s arms came crashing around Tony’s back, squeezing the boy to his chest until Tony could feel his feet being lifted off the ground. “I missed ya buddy, I swear it was just yesterday you were asking me if you could build Lego ships in my study!” He said, putting the boy down and ruffling his hair. Tony was shocked. “You remember that?”

“Hell yeah. Now…about this Jean Grey thing. What are we gonna do?” He said,

“Y-you’re not mad?”

“Of course I’m a little upset-told your Mom that magazine was a pile of shit.” He said, shaking his head. “We’re gonna need to talk to a few people. I’ve done it before, I’m sure I could do it again.”

“Why are you here Dad?”

“Your Dean Fury gave us a call. Said the Rogers were coming down and we were planning to see you anyway, check on how you were doing after this morning’s article.”

“Oh…” He said, attempting to come to terms with the fact that his dad was actually here, and he wasn't barking mad. 

“Come on Buddy-do we need to see this Dean guy or can we just go straight home? We’ve got a lot to talk about.” He slung an arm around Tony’s shoulder and steered him into another side hug. His mother and Jarvis had been unusually silent. Probably anticipating the inevitable fight between them to start.

“Uh well I was called to see him so we might as well…” He said, gesturing towards Fury’s office.

“Sure thing, lead the way son.”

“Uhm yeah….sure Dad…” He looked back to his mother, raising his eyebrows. Maria just smiled, the knowing smile of a mother who had finally achieved a lifelong success.

Jarvis was unemotional as usual, but Tony had learned to decipher the placement of his wrinkles enough to know that he was happy for him.

They arrived outside the office where Fury’s secretary was waiting for them.

“This way please.” She said, surprisingly not annoyed since Tony was pretty sure Fury had been expecting him about an hour ago.

They were lead into the office, the same one Tony had only been in once for his official admission.

“Mr Stark, Mrs Stark, Anthony. I assume you know why you’re here.”  Fury stood up from behind the large oak desk with a brief nod before sitting back down. There were three seats in front of it, and Howard steered Tony towards them, settling the boy down. Jarvis hovered next to Maria.

“No I just thought it was a visit for my son-of course I know why we’re here. What I want to know is what you’re going to do about it.” Howard said, staring straight into Fury’s one eye. No one knows what happened there, but Tony’s heard enough rumours to figure out it was something dangerous that he didn’t want to get into.

“Well there’s nothing _I_ can do about it.  It just goes down to your son and Mr Rogers to do something.”

“Mr Fury, I’m sure you realise how dire this situation is. Whilst I realise there is nothing you can actively do to prevent the spread of this magazine, please, can you at least guarantee my son’s safety?” Maria pleaded, clasping her hands together over her chest.

“That, Mrs Stark, is exactly what SHIELD university was created for. Tony will be safe from the media here. From his peers…well, I’m sure Mr Stark can fill you in on that himself.” Fury looked directly at Tony, fixing him with an intimidating look.

Ton gulped, nodding quickly.

“Well son, looks like the best thing we can do is accept what’s happened and move on. The Rogers aren’t going to be best pleased about this, but I’m going to tell that gossip magazine that I support my son’s choice. If he wants to jump the pants of another boy, I’m not going to stop him.” Howard said, with the most sincere smile Tony had ever seen him produce since his parents wedding photos.

“Good on you sir, now if you’ll excuse me I am a busy man. You are free to go gate-crash Tony’s dorm or whatever-just don’t cause any trouble.” He waved them off with an impatient flap of his hands and Howard grabbed Tony, pulling him out. He was once again crushed to his father’s side as Howard ruffled his hair and patted his shoulder with encouragement.

“It’s gonna be okay Buddy, we’ll get you through this.”

Maria came up next to him, gently taking his hand in her gloved ones.

“So where’s your place kid? I’ve been dying to see how that house’s been doing. I remember when I was in this place. Changed a lot since we were here.” He said, reminiscing his days.

Tony stiffened. His parents didn’t know about “Rainbow Dorm”. He had been planning to tell his father about how his little house had bloomed. But his dad seemed a lot more accepting…It was looking like he would just have to hope for the best. He prayed his dad wouldn’t freak out too much.

“Uh yeah Dad, it’s…still the same. Same old Unit 68…” He said with a nervous smile. Maria raised her eyebrow. She was always able to see through Tony’s ploys.

“It’s a good thing we brought Jarvis. He’ll probably whip your ass for keeping the place in a mess.” Howard said, giving the waiter a smile. Jarvis was _very_ particular on his state of cleanliness. Well, it was lucky that so were Carol, Pepper and Natasha. Rainbow Dorm was always clean. And they were the sole reason laundry was actually done.

Howard lead them to the family Rolls, with their signature “STARK-II” license plate. It was a nice familiarity. He hadn’t been in this car in ages. The drive was quiet, contemplative. Howard _still_ hadn’t let go off Tony. Maria was continuously shooting him knowing smiles and looks. He guessed she’d talked to him and made him realise his mistakes. Or something like that.

And as they passed the houses, he couldn’t help but feel that he was one of the most privileged people in the universe. He had an entire house of people who supported him-some who only barely knew him. He had two of the most caring best friends in the whole world and now even his father had decided to finally show his love for him. And well, what more could a guy ask for?  Sure he’d have to face hell when Classes officially started, but at least he wouldn’t be alone.

They finally pulled up outside Rainbow Dorm as Jarvis parked on the side with all their cars. Howard and Tony got out as Jarvis held the door open for Maria.

“Holy shit I can’t believe you’ve still got this thing.” Howard said, looking at Tony’s 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle. He’d kept it in pristine condition since the day he bought it and waxed it until her body was a mirror of sleek black.

“She’s a classic dad, wouldn’t trade her for the world.” Tony said, clapping his old man on the back. It was an alien sensation to him, actually having a conversation with his dad about cars. Growing up watching TV shows and movies from the 90s gave him this sort of paternal aspiration. One that, sadly, was never fulfilled. Not until now anyway.

They turned as the sound of another engine entered the vicinity, and Clint’s convertible came into view. It was the middle of bloody winter and he had the hood down. Damn punk.  He parked and jumped out of the side, leaving Bruce to walk out formally and lock the car.

“Tony! We were wondering where you’d got to! How’s it going man?” Clint ran up to him and gave him a hug, clapping his back.

“You must Tony’s Dad, I’m Clint Barton, and I live with him.” He said with an easy smile, offering his hand. Howard took it with a nod and a smile, giving Clint a little pat on the head.

“Wow Tony, you didn’t tell me you had a sister!” Clint said, moving to meet Maria. “Hey there I’m Clint Barton.” He said with a wink as Maria pretended to look outraged.

“Young man that is no way to speak to an older woman-especially one who is married.” She said with mock anger.  
“Relax Maria the kid’s just having a bit of fun.” Howard said, chuckling a little. Tony raised his eyebrows at Jarvis- _is this even real?_ He got an elegant tilt in response- _it would certainly seem so._

“Clint dammit you left me to get the shopping!” Bruce said, struggling under the many grocery bags.

“Oh sorry Brucie-bear!” Clint ducked and gave the boy a quick kiss before grabbing some of the bags off Bruce. Said boy stiffened, quickly turning his gaze to Tony, who was holding his breath to see his parents’ reaction.

Yet instead, they remained as they were, with Howard even smiling a little at the sight. “Jarvis, you wouldn’t mind helping the kids with their bags would you? Just this once.”

“Certainly sir.” The butler walked over and grabbed all the bags from the boys, carefully balancing them. Clint and Bruce just stared at him with their mouths hanging open.

“So Tony, aren’t you going to show your old man in?” Howard said, once again reaching for his son’s shoulders.

“Uh yeah, just…follow me…” He said, gulping as he led his parents to the frontage of Rainbow Dorm, praying to God that everything would indeed turn out alright.

 


	15. Parental Consultation 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to apologise now for the fact that this chapter is very very rushed, but it is only a pre-edition for what's coming up next. I'll probably improve the quality of it later, but for now just focus on the plot? :D I promise it will get better! (I've had exams so...my brain isn't working quite right at the moment)

After Howard and Maria had been invited inside, all the members of Rainbow Dorm had got together and explained to them what had really been happening, about Johann, about Tony and about the picture at the beginning of the year. The whole story. Howard had apologised profusely for being such a horrible father. And in some ways, it definitely wasn’t something Tony had ever been prepared for. But he accepted it nonetheless, because right now, he needed his parents more than ever.

But Maria had been silent, contemplating. She had given each speaker her undivided attention, still as a statue. Only at the end had she unfolded her hands from her lap, smoothing down her dress. Everyone was looking at her, waiting for some sort of comment. Tony was practically shaking with anxiety. His father’s approval was one thing, his mother’s however, was another.

“That’s all fine….but I don’t understand. If Tony-and sweetie I am very proud you decided to come out officially-has been a gay icon since the beginning of this new college year…how come he hasn’t been all over the news or social media? How has all of this been hidden from the world?”

Tony opened his mouth to say something, but then he thought about it. His mother had a very valid point-something he himself had not thought about. He’d been riding on his success for so long that it never even occurred to him that word might get out. He looked to Pepper, hoping she’d have a solution. Instead she just pointedly looked at the ground. Which meant she knew something about this. She sighed, “Darce, my laptop.” She said, as the girl gave her a solemn nod and passed the Macbook to her.

“Tony…we have a confession to make.” She looked to Maria (who was staring straight ahead). “Word has got out. Big time. But we protected you from it. We didn’t show you what happened on the social networks, we hid what we could. Because…I know you Tony. I knew you were happy being open and free but…I knew there was a part of you that wanted this to be small. Private. But with the freedom we have these days…no one does privacy anymore.”

“….But…I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr! I see what you guys post…how did yo-“

“We hacked your computer. Well, I hacked your computer. I put in software which only let you see what I wanted you to.” Maria said, expressionless as ever.

“But…I’m a tech genius! I…I would’ve picked up on that!” He said, flabbergasted at such an astounding notion.

“Tony…you may be a genius, but I don’t think it would have crossed your mind to check the coding of your social networks.”

“And I should know man. You were pretty lax.” Rhodey said.

“What!? You were in on this too!?” He said, glaring at Rhodey over his glasses.

“We all were, Tony dear.” Carol said from behind him, gently spreading a hand on his shoulder.

“What!? Guys I feel so betrayed.” He said, pouting. 

“Well I guess since this is confession time I have something to say too.” His head snapped up Howard spoke. The man got up, raising his hands in a defensive pose.

“Son, do you have any idea the number of emails I received telling me how much of an inspiration you were? That you were the reason they felt that they could show the world their true colours? I got letters from parents too , parents congratulating me-a few being right pricks too.  I know about that damn picture too, I’ve been trying my damned best to censor anything I got get my hands on. I…once I saw what you’d been up to, I realised that I’ve been real harsh on you. You’ve grown to be a brilliant son, confident, inspirational…you’ve made me a heck of a proud and shamed father. Son I’m sorry for all the torment I caused you. But I just hope you can forgive me, because…I love you, Anthony Edward Stark, my son. Even when it seemed like I didn’t, I always did. Always.” Howard finished, removing his glasses to face the boy properly.

Tony looked to the ground, before pushing past the people crowding him on the couch as he ran up to his bedroom; covering his eyes as he did. He’d already cried in front of people twice this morning, he didn’t need a third. He crashed into his bed just as Archie got out of his case. The hamster looked at him silently as Tony sobbed into his blankets.

A few minutes of partial silence later, there was a gentle knock on his door as his mother’s soothing voice filtered in.  “Tony, Sweetie, may I come in? I brought Jarvis with me.” She took his lack of answer as a yes, entering silently.  Jarvis’ quiet and careful steps followed hers and soon Tony felt his bed dip with the extra weight. The butler had been utterly silent throughout the entire ordeal, but Tony found nothing but comfort in that silently expressive dear old face.

“Hey mom.” He said, sniffing as he sat up.

“I’m sorry this happened baby.” She said, pulling her son into her lap, just like when he was a child. Jarvis would sit at the end of his bed, statue still and hanging onto Tony’s every word. There was always an extra test waiting for him the next day.

Maria would take his head in her hands, playing with the unruly hair, as she had now. Tony’s face was turned into her torso, inhaling her familiar perfume.

“I-it’s okay. It’s not that. I just…” He sighed, “I’m just a bit overwhelmed is all.”

“Was it dad’s speech?”

“…it was…everything really…god I’m such a wuss…”He replied, looking up to meet his mother’s eyes.

“I spoke to him. He’s not…a very emotive man. He didn’t realise how you felt sweetie but he knew he hadn’t been the best of fathers. But he accepts you Tony, and he supports you. We love you and we will see this through. “

“Yeah, thanks Mom. I guess I can go through this.” He said, laughing. He’d always hated being the subject of sentiment, and it drove his mother crazy.

“So about this Johann Schmidt guy, you’re sure it was him?” Maria said, raising an eyebrow. She had a dangerous expression on her face, which mean that she was planning something lethal.

“Yes but we can’t prove anything unless he admits it himself-which he never will.”

“Excuse me Sir, but I believe I might be able to shed some light on the situation.” Jarvis cleared his throat. “The facts are such that Mr Schmidt was not present at the party, so he would not have been on hand to take the picture, since he had been at the Ball. Therefore, he has an alibi. And we can confirm this since you provided a guest list and the fellow inhabitants of your dorm had been keeping careful vigilance on those who were attending. Therefore we can only deduce that he had sent someone unassuming to attend the party, hence giving them the opportunity to take a photo.”

There was silence as Jarvis finished, both Starks giving him the same expression of awe and admiration.

“Jarvis you are a genius, man I’ve missed you.” Tony said, smiling. Jarvis merely nodded, with a smug air surrounding him. “I do have my moments, sir.”

“Okay so we need to check the guest lists, then interview anyone who might be slightly suspicious. Let’s go tell the others.” Tony ran down the stairs, returned to his usual energised (well, as energised as he could be) self. Jarvis and Tony explained the plan to the others, and soon they were all at work checking and cross checking alibis and student identities.

Howard and Maria were due to leave the next day, so they cooked them a celebratory dinner-true Rainbow Dorm style, before retiring for the night, with plans to continue their search tomorrow.

It was a small start, but Tony already had a good feeling about going back to class. He was going to get rid of Schmidt once, and for all.

Now all he had to do was talk to Steve. _Lord give me strength…_


	16. Tony and the dynamo Scumbags

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's originality for counselling character has been compromised due to the stress of exams. 
> 
> Okay really quickly-opinion expressed about Elton John, I mean NO offense, honestly it's not even an offensive comment. It's just that...it's a lot harder for a young person (especially a rich kid like Tony) coming out would be a little bit harder than a more mature man with such immense and amazing talent (honestly, I am in awe of that man, he is my idol). So please don't flame me for what Maria says because it is NOT offensive, NOT condemning mature gay icons, NOT condemning anyone okay? Thank you. Please.

_Scandal as Tony Stark and Steven Rogers are caught lipblocking in a SHIELD Univeristy dorm. This is one of the rare feeds we’ve ever been allowed to get our hands on, and the gratifying identity of our benefactor remains a secret, but we thank them greatly. Anyway, we can only infer that this dorm is not theirs, and that their relationship is-was-a secret. More on this story as it develops!_

Steve ground his teeth in anger, ripping up the offending magazine, consecutively punching the wall. His knuckles had split slightly, but he found the pain was somewhat comforting. He had been forced to wear his hair over his eye to prevent people from seeing the damage.  He was fortunate it suited him, gave him that sort of “teen heartthrob” effect.  But the mental damage would not be so easily undone. He was used to it. Just about. His dad hadn’t been considerate when he was a child either.

“Steven? Is everything alright?” Steve groaned. The one person he _really_ didn’t want to see. “What do you think, you motherfucking piece of shit. It’s your fault I’m in this bloody mess.” He growled, turning to face the German boy. Steve stood just a negligible few centimetres taller than him, so they were almost equally matched.

“What? How could you suggest such a thing? True, I do not like Mr Stark, but why would I dare do something like this?”

“Because, Johann, you’ve always had it in for him. And I never understood why. Why did you have to stick your godamn nose into other people’s business? Why couldn’t you just leave it be?”

“I did! But you see Steve, it was not me who sent that picture. I was at the ball, how could I?” His voice was soft, surprisingly soft, gentle.

“Because you have spies everywhere, because people will do anything for you so that you don’t hurt them.” He spat.

“I would not Steve. My fight is not with you, not anymore.” Johann replied, gently placing his hand on Steve’s wrist.

The blonde eyed him cautiously. “Even if I did believe you, which I don’t, who else could it have been?”

Johann sighed dramatically, rubbing circles into Steve’s arm. “I…I do not know. You have no enemies. I do not understand who would bear any ill will towards you.”

“Besides you and your league of boneheads.” He said. He couldn’t believe it, he was sitting here, with a man he actually despised, having a heart to heart.

“Steve…please, let us put our past behind us. I…I regret my actions. But after Wanda, I am a changed man. Let us be friends.” He said, tilting Steve’s face towards his own. “Are we in agreement?”

Steve’s eyes widened. “I…I guess…”

“Good, now anytime you need to talk, you know where to go.” Johann said, patting Steve’s large bicep before leaving the room.

Class started in 5 minutes, which meant it was time to face the music.

Tony walked onto campus with a calm and composed air, attempting to seem confident. Carol and Jess were at his side, accompanying him up.

“Okay guys I think I can take it from here.” He said, smiling. For once, he was actually looking _forward_ to seeing Professor Coulson.

The two girls exchanged a glance and released Tony’s arms. “If you’re sure sweetie, we’ll see you at lunch.” Carol said, enveloping him in a hug and pressing a brief kiss to his forehead. They left with a quick wave, heading off to their respective areas of campus.

He inhaled and walked on, entering the science block.

“C’mon Steve you _totally_ have to tell us who did it! You must know!” Janet Van Dyne, accompanied by her too-weak-for-words boyfriend Hank.

Tony hid behind one of the supporting pillars for the arches running parallel to the entrances of the classroom door, wanting to hear the rest of this conversation.

Steve sighed, looking away. “Well…okay, the truth is…” He took a deep breath. “Tony forced me to do it.”

“ _What!?”_

What!? How could Steve even…how _dare_ he? How could do this to Tony…after all they’d been through. After all his promises too.

“Yeah, I don’t wanna talk about it. But he totally forced it onto me-and I didn’t know how to react y’know?”

“Oh Steve honey, that foolish boy! You don’t need him, not when you have us.” She said, looping herself around him.

Steve eagerly returned the hug, and Tony ran out from behind the pillar, darting straight into his classroom. He didn’t want to hear anymore. It wasn’t much to go on, but he already had a horrid feeling that this was going to be a long day.

Indeed, a more accurate prediction could not have been cast.

“Fellow students of SHIELD university, I am sure you are all aware of the picture that has been circulating our social networks. And this is why today I ask you to give support to my dear team member Steve.” Johann Schmidt was stood upon a table, addressing the canteen. All eyes were trained on his figure, as he captivated the crowd with his slightly accented, powerful and brutal voice. “Which is why I would also like to draw your attention to Mr Stark. He is a vile, manipulative creature, who has subjected our Steve to ridicule. We know that he is proud of his sexuality, but his need for inflicting it onto the rest of the world has come to a new extreme-fondling a man who is clearly not interested in him. But perhaps this was all an act, a plan of vengeance, acting on his father’s orders to get back on an old family rival. I suppose you all thought he was your hero, that he cared for you. But you were all of you deceived.”

All eyes swivelled to Tony, and he swallowed nervously. Now or never, fight or flight.

He rose to his feet and faced his challenger. Vaguely reminded of Dragon Ball Z battle between Goku and Vegeta, he hardened his glare. “Perhaps you should validate your accusations, dear Johann. True, I am proud of my sexuality-why shouldn’t I be? But let me tell you now that this…thing that has happened, it has nothing to do with you Johann. Why do assume everything is always about you?! And let me tell you another thing, I didn’t _fondle_ Steve, he’s been fucking me for months!” He said, looking towards the blonde. “We were…are…in a relationship. And well I guess now that it’s out, I should probably come clear with the truth.” He’d dashed all the threats Ian had made-Howard had assured him that he would personally deal with the Rogers himself. Now he just had to work on Steve.

“Is this true, Steven?” Johann’s voice sounded genuine, but his smile was merciless.

The eyes swivelled to Steve now, all the students curiously anticipating how this drama would develop.

“I…uhm….” He briefly caught the gazes of Sam and Bucky. They nodded, indicating that they wanted Steve to tell the truth. But he just couldn’t afford to do that. Not if the sting in his eye was anything to go by. “He’s lying, it’s just some made up fantasy he’s created in order to satisfy himself. I just went to him for tuition. I had no idea he’d developed it into this.” He said, adamantly staring at his cheeseburger.

“So we have it, Mr Stark you are nothing but a liar. Who knew, that you had kept this façade only to fuel your own sexual desire. Tut tut tut.” Johann sat down, patting Steve on the back. Lunch slowly returned to its usual gusto, but it lacked as much enthusiasm. Tony looked to the faces of his dorm mates, panic stricken, sympathetic and sorry.

“I…I….” He was at a loss for words. “I..you..later.” He finally managed, before running out of the canteen.

Clint, Darcy and Elektra made to go after him, but were soon stopped by Natasha and Maria.

“Leave him be, now isn’t a good time to talk to him.” Pepper said, shooting them an apologetic look as they continued their lunch in silence.

Meanwhile the football team were enjoying their meal with emphasised enthusiasm-all save a few members. Ben, Johnny and Thor ate in contemplative silence; whilst Bucky and Sam were more than happy to direct murderous glances in Steve’s direction.

“I hope you’re happy.” Sam hissed, “Enjoy the dark side, because there is no going back.”

“You know why I did i-“

“You didn’t need to.” Bucky piped up, “You can stand up to your dad now, what is he-one man-versus a whole following of people? But that’s just my opinion. Clearly you’d rather be a douchebag with a safe ass, than a kind heart with strength and valour.” He finished, grabbing his tray to sit next to Rhodey.

“What he said… _brother_.” He mocked, joining Bucky’s retreat and finding his seat next to Brunnehilde-his new best friend.

Tony had run to the banks of the river that run past SHIELD university. Oh what had he done? What had he caused? Why couldn’t he have just let them walk over him?!

“Because you’re better than that.” He jumped as Maria Murdock materialised next to him. How on _earth_ did she do that?!

“W-what?”

“You’re contemplating whether it would have been better to leave it, to not have bothered putting up a fight, to be insubordinate.”

“…well yeah…it would’ve been…wouldn’t it?”

“Regrettably this is the second philosophical counselling session I’ve had with you, but boy do you need it. Listen Tony, there will always be people who will oppose you, who will disappoint you, who will betray you. There will always be people who are unhappy with your decisions, just like there are always going to be people who don’t accept homosexuality, transsexuality, genderqueers…it won’t happen. But the best we can do is fight and exist for ourselves. Why should we be limited and pressured by their ideals? We shouldn’t!” She paused, “Tony I’m sure you deduced many things about me, but now I think it’s time I told you a story.” She cleared her throat. “After living with you for four months, I’ve decided you are genuine and trustworthy, so…here goes.” This was the first time Tony had seen Maria anything but her usual cocky/confident self. He wasn’t sure he would like what was about to come. “My real name is Matthew Michael Murdock. I was born as part of the male gender with genetic blindness. By age 10, I knew there was something missing in my life, and I realised it was because I…I didn’t feel like a boy. I felt a girl inside-I know I’m boyish and macho, but I wanted to change…I _needed_ to change. So my grandparents, bless them, let me go through hormonal changes. Changed the will and family inheritance and everything, and so I changed my name to Maria. The best part was the support from my girlfriend Elektra. I only had three people who thought this was a good idea Tony, _three._ You have hundreds! Anyway, you might be wondering how I managed in school-a boy turned into a girl? I was mostly home schooled, and by age 14, now a complete girl, I started junior high. People often asked me about my past, about why all my clothes were boys clothes, about why I had to keep injecting myself. But watch me-do I let these things bother me? Do I let other people’s rules and regulations cramp my style? No. You wanna know why? Because Tony, it’s my life, just like it’s yours. And no one ever said life was going to be easy-in fact; the Victorians believed that a painful life was god’s intention. So maybe Steve said that shit today, but Tony…you’re above this. So maybe the student body will hate you now, but think to your following. I know we hid it from you Tony, but take it from a witness; you’re loved and supported everywhere. I told you this before, but you are an inspiration. Sure there are many gay icons-take Elton John for an example-but Elton John is older, mature and respected because he has a profession and a talent. People tend to look past his sexuality. But you, you are a teenager, living in a world with torn values and views. You are a young man, barely out of high school, who has stood up to them all. So forget this Tony, and embrace what Jean Grey has said about you. Look at how much support and love you have Tony-I need not remind you so much, I’m sure you are aware. So Tony, thank fucking god you didn’t let them walk over you. Because now we can all breathe just a little bit easier.” She finished by hugging Tony close to her chest. Unfortunately, Maria being a little more on the manly side meant that she was hugging him so tight he couldn’t actually breathe. Previously, Tony would be completely content with being submerged into the warmth of a woman’s chest, but now he found them more suffocating than arousing.

“Mmmaria, I-uhmph, can’t…BREATHE.” He took a deep breath, and stared in horror at the wet patch he’d made on her camouflage green Green Day t-shirt. “I…oh sorry….I…oh god fucking dammit Maria how come every time we talk you make me fucking cry like a child!” He yelled, both exasperated and thankful.

“Must be my natural charm.” She said in a deadpan voice. “Now come on, we can both ditch our afternoon classes, there’s a new movie out and I’d quite like to see it.” She helped him up and they walked into the nearby town at the foot of the mountain upon which stood SHIELD University.

Tony decided against pointing out the obvious-that Maria couldn’t see-but he knew better than that. And besides, she would probably have a better idea about what was going on that he did at the end of it. She was just that kind of a genius.

The rest of the day was spent in the comforting darkness of the local cinema as they watched the beautifully complex “ _Catch me if you can”_ starring Tony (and surprisingly, Maria’s) favourite actor-Leanardo Di Caprio.

It was bizarre; it was stupid-just randomly going to watch a movie when there was so much to deal with back at Uni. But it was what Tony needed.

He was aware that he was making this situation far more dire than it really was. So his picture had appeared on a magazine, so his boyfriend had been a dick. So some of the students hated him. Life’s too fucking short to worry.

It was dark by the time they arrived back at Rainbow Dorm, their trek having endured the liberating experience of companionable and contemplative silence.

“Figured it out yet?” She asked, as they knocked on the door.

“Yes, yup it came as an epiphany. I had a Native Indian woman appear in my daydream and everything.”

“As long as you get it.” She laughed, knocking on the door again. The grand oak plank opened to reveal a very distressed looking Pepper. Her unusually pale cheeks were dusted with the tell-tale tracks of tears.

“Pepper!? What happened?!” He said, pulling her into him.

She gave him a painful look. “Oh _Tony_.” She turned her head, clearing Tony’s path of vision and directing his gaze to the living room behind her.

His mouth dropped. _Oh my fucking god._


	17. Whilst you were sleeping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay seriously I make Maria confess her most hidden secret, and all you guys can focus on is the damn cliffhanger? Did no one not see this coming??? I thought it was going to be a surprise :(  
> There ain't much of a cliffhanger in this one, ehehehehehe I'm so bloody EVIL I'm sure you guys really enjoyed that last one >D 
> 
> Oh yeah and this chapter is...well it's nothing much really BUT I NEEDED TO GET THIS OUT before the main climax. If it's confusing-it's meant to be, wait till the next chapter, and see how I've carefully avoided any extended explanation BECAUSE ALL SHALL BE REVEALED NEXT CHAPTER.

Erik Lehnsherr aggressively placed his huge fist upon the door, the collision of calloused skin on wood sending a resonating sound through the house. "Where is he? Where is my Charles?! Let me in!”

The unfortunate door guard for that evening was Sue, who slowly opened the door in order to check who it was, and was promptly pushed out of the way by a stampede of muscle and hurried apologies.

Erik ran into the living room, pushing past the audience currently gathered around the periphery of the room. Tony was kneeling next to the couch, desperately latching on to the pale arm of a motionless Charles Xavier.  
"C'mon buddy, c'mon Charlie, you can do this, you're okay, come on Charles, COME ON!" Tony was yelling by now, shaking the deathly boy. Someone from behind him sniffed-probably Carol-as they all prayed for their dear friend.  Erik sank next to him, resting his forehead on Charles' arm after placing a small paper package on the ground.  
"I am sorry, so sorry I let this happen to you....how could I have let this..." His voice started to trail off, body shaking.

Charles had been struck unconscious; his face had been cut and bruised in multiple places. His exposed chest was covered in scratches, and there were ugly stitches securing the bridge of skin on his cut eyebrow. Jane had cleaned him up well-as was the brilliance of their handy medical astrophysicist.  
They sat like that for the better part of ten minutes, in complete silence as the others filed in to check on him. Finally Tony rose, eyes red and puffy as Erik moved to the couch, cradling Charles in his strong embrace.

"Pepper, the package-i...it has some of Charles favourite foods. If you could-" Erik started, unable to complete his sentence. The blonde nodded, picking up the paper bag and heading to the kitchen. "How did you find him?" he asked, running his hands through Charles’ hair.

"He was delivered at our doorstep, unconscious." Clint said, grimacing at the memory.

“Do you know who could’ve been responsible?”

“Oh please that’s damn obvious.” Elektra muttered.

“That man-boy-child, will literally stop at nothing…” Tony said, shaking his head. “First the photo, then the magazine spread….now this….” He said.

“Well, assuming it was _him_ who sent the photo into the magazine.” Elektra muttered.

“What was that Elektra?” Natasha said, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, it’s just that we don’t really know anymore do we? I mean, c’mon, how do we know that Johann was the one behind this?”

“You…you mean to say you think _Tony_ was behind this?”

“Well, you should hear the things they’ve been spreading…” Darcy said.

“Darcy!” Jane gave her a light shove, clearly very disappointed.

“What? I’m just saying that’s what I’ve heard. Never said I _believed_ it!”

“Well in any case, we just don’t know who we can trust.” Jess said, shooting a sharp look at Tony.

“I can’t believe you guys! After all Tony did for us“ Sue looked outraged, “How could you even say this?”

“Oh please all he did was let us into his house, it’s not like he was in charge of a rally, or started a protest. He barely seems at par with his own sexuality.”

“What the fuck!? You’re not at part with your own sexuality you fucking fake lesbian!”

“YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT-“

“YEAH WELL YOU DON’T KNOW TONY STARK-“

Tony looked between the faces of roommates in utter disbelief. “I am right here y’know.” He said meekly, attempting to at least _try_ to be heard, but no one seemed to take notice as they continued to argue about his significance in this whole situation. This was just bizarre-you normally bitch about someone _behind_ their back. Not when they were right there.  

Almost everyone was now taking part in this stupid argument, and he was just about to break it up when he felt a vibration against his leg.  It was from his phone-snugly crammed into the pocket of his skinny jeans-and he gently tried to prise the little gadget from his pocket. The phone lit up immediately, and he felt his stomach churn at the ID.

The text was from Steve.

At first, he decided to ignore it. Yet, they still needed to clarify many things. And perhaps (although Tony loathed wishful thinking) there was a chance he wanted to reconcile. He unlocked the phone, inhaling deeply as he clicked on the messages app. It was at this point that he also decided it was probably a good idea to leave the room-he’d rather the arguing population of his household did _not_ know about the text. Especially with their new found opinions of him.

He slunk out into the corridor, and read the message. _“Meet me by the lake, midnight. Come alone. I need to talk to you. I’m sorry.”_

Tony frowned. That was rather fishy-midnight? By a _lake?_ Rather romantic-perhaps he did want to reconcile. He smiled. Perhaps all was not lost.

He checked the time-9:45-okay he had two hours to kill. And he sure as heck wasn’t spending it here. Time to leave.

It was sad, here he’d thought he’d finally got a family, and a set of good friends, only to have them turn on him again. And on a rather pathetic background too. The whole set up was stupid. But he ignored it, because after his reconciliation with Steve, everyone would see he was genuine all the time. If that could be classed as an advantage.

He grabbed his coat, scarf, gloves and hat before doing up his snow boots. He cast one look back at the house and its inhabitants before heading out-making sure to slam the door in his path.

The night was cold-it was what Tony used to call a “Dragon night” as a kid, because you would exhale and your breath would appear as a puff of smoke. Jarvis never bothered to correct him, always letting the young boy roam their large gardens pretending to be Smaug the terrible (or Tony the terrifying). The memory brought a smile onto his face-a little confidence boost before he faced Steve. He could feel the nervous energy spreading through his body, but he needed to do this. He could definitely do this. They would talk it out and then they would tell everyone the truth! And then his friends would believe them, and life would continue as it always had done.

At least, that’s what he hoped. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for precisely 7 seconds, and made his way to the lake.

Meanwhile, back at Rainbow Dorm, the chaotic commotion had come to an abrupt halt. At hearing the door slam, they exchanged nervous glances.

“Well that could’ve gone better.” Jess remarked, raising an eyebrow.

“It was convincing enough! He left right?”

“Well are we sure he’s gone?” Elektra whispered. Darcy moved to the hallway, cocking an ear to see if there was any movement upstairs. “Yeah he’s gone” she called, and Pepper took the cue. First she went to the couch, where an utterly bewildered Erik Lehnsherr was giving them all death glares. She leant next to the couch. “Charles honey, you can get up now.” She cooed gently, rubbing his head.

Erik opened his mouth to protest, when the boy opened his eyes. “Oh hey Pepper, did I do okay?”

“You kidding? You managed to convince Erik freaking Lehnsherr.” Darcy said, winking at the football player.

“That’s not difficult to achieve.” He said, smirking. “But I did _actually_ get beat up.”

"Yeah sorry about that. But hey, it's for a good cause." Darcy re-assured him, and Charles just rolled his eyes. Erik was still confused. 

"Wait wait what's going on? Is this about Tony?" 

"Yes-Charles will tell you later, right now we need you to stay with him and nurse him. Think you can do that?" 

"You bet your puny ass I can." He said, with a confident grin. 

"Brilliant, okay people battle stations." Pepper said, turning to the rest of them. "It's time to roll." 


	18. Can you hear the rainbows sing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....you guys should totally check the end of chapter 17 because I changed a little bit ^^ otherwise, OH YES THIS IS THE CHAPTER I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR.   
> I'll probably be editing this over the next few days,but I hope you like it :D
> 
> They didn't really fight fire with fire if anyone thinks that-this was a far more diplomatic approach.

Can you hear the rainbows sing?

The walk to the lake was quiet and brisk, as Tony desperately tried to avoid the haunting eyes of Student village. He wasn’t very interested to hear what they had to think of him anyway. But it was going to be okay, it was all going to end well because Steve wanted to reconcile right? _But what if it wasn’t Steve? What if someone got hold of his phone?_ No, now he was just being preposterous. Everything would be fine.

Soon the sound of flowing water entered his ears, and the worn path that lead to its banks began to surface. He walked to the lake and sat by the very same tree Maria had found him by earlier that evening. It seemed so surreal, what could happen in such a short span of time. It was now five past ten, which meant he had a heck of a lot of time to kill. He gently pulled the hood of his coat over his face, leant against the bark of the tree trunk, and promptly fell asleep. He was going to need it.

A little while later he was awoken by the soft thud of multiple footsteps making their way down to the bank. That wasn’t right…multiple footsepts? Who had he brought with him? Bucky and Sam? Perhaps Ben and Johnny had joined in too. Nonetheless, he decided it was time to get up. The bark had done no favours for his back.

The group were now approaching the clearing. He could just about make out the large and muscular frames. He squinted, trying to ascertain their identities. They stopped just a few feet away from him, faces still hidden in the dark. There was a pool of light between them, cast from the moon’s reflection of the sun’s illumination. It was almost like a spotlight on a stage, where the protagonists would soon move to in order to begin their confrontation.

He walked forward, taking a confident deep breath. The leader of the other group copied, and by now Tony was definitely having his doubts. He stepped into the puddle of light, fearless and challenging.

“You know Mr Stark, for a person of your intelligence, you sure are gullible.” He froze. Voice like a cold knife slicing through your body, cocky intonation and slight German lilt….there was only one person that could be (or two…but the other rarely spoke). Johann motherfucking Schmidt.

“What the bloody heckie are you doing here?!”

“Well, I called, and you came.” He replied, now eerily illuminated as he entered the circle. Yeesh, that was certainly a sight for sore eyes.

“What do you want.” He said, not framing it like a question, but more a derogatory statement. He frowned, “Where’s Steve?”

“Steven is…somewhat occupied. Let us say I…re-introduced him to his previous partner, Miss Carter and, Gunther, how many condoms did he take with him?”

There was a snort from the darkness behind Johann. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen. See Tony, he’s over you.” Johann said, smiling.

Tony’s hands had made angry fists at his side. “What does it matter to you? And why did you send that damn picture-I mean seriously, if you wanted to spite me, do something original. You already did the picture thing.”

“I am aware, but it seemed just so much more… _alluding.”_

Tony was no English expert, but he was pretty sure _alluding_ was not the word for that situation. Arousing, maybe. Because let it be said that there was no secrets when it came to Johann’s kinks. (Privy to only Gunther’s eyes, Johann owns three signed copies of the “50 Shades” series).

“Right…but why Johann? Why do you have to keep spiting me huh? C’mon dude I think it’s pretty obvious we don’t give a shit about you. Why don’t you learn to do the same.”

“Because of the powe-“

“God damn your power! God damn it all. Don’t you fucking get it? The student body isn’t just another group of people for you to extend your control over, they’re fucking individuals with their own likes, dislkikes and opinions. They don’t need to be _ruled-_ no one fucking does that anymore. This is 2014, not 1348!”

“And yet it seems pretty obvious that I have managed to do so, for the past 13 years.”

“….you were powerful when you were in Kindergarten?!” Tony replied, raising an eyebrow, acting a lot more confident than he felt.

“He was king of the Wendy house.” Gunther called proudly from the shadows, earning a few snickers from the others. _Who even willingly came?_

“Minor formalities, now let us get to the real part. We are going to make an example of you Tony, so that no one ever gets the impression that they can go against us again. We already hurt your precious Charles, now it is time to do so again. But this time we will not be so kind.” He said, with an unnaturally happy tone to his voice.

The group came forward, and Tony began to retreat back into the darkness. Now he could make out the faces of his companions-there was James Howlett, god that guy always looked completely stoned, the two Hanks-Hank Pym and Hank McCoy (he could’ve sworn that he was once one of Charles’ best friends….must’ve been mistaken). But as he looked at the last three members (bar Gunther) his heart sank-it was Thor, Ben and Johnny. The three people he’d thought were his friends. Thor looked fierce…angry, more so than before. He couldn’t make out the expressions on the other two. And in truth, he didn’t want to.

He gulped when he saw what was in their hands. It ranged from ropes to knives to a suspicious looking crate that he was pretty sure had Kerosene in it. Johann himself was carrying a riding crop (that was more disturbing than scary). But this time he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out. This time, he was well and truly done for.

“Listen…guys…we can work this out! It doesn’t have to be this way!”

“…Yes Tony, it _does_.” Johann sneered, as he raised the crop in his hands. Tony sped up his backwards trek until his back hit the bark of the tree. Brilliant, and now he was cornered. _This is it Stark, you’ve really done it this time. All we have left is our faith._ He scrunched his eyes shut and started to sing Ave Maria in his head, just like he saw his mother do countless times in Church.

He felt the cool rush of air as Johann swiped the crop up, ready to strike him, when a blood curdling cry came from the trees.

“GET HIM!” The ground shook with the force of the group running towards them. Well, in theory it did anyway. Johann turned just in time to get hit in the face with a shot of red paint. The banks flooded with light, coming from the massive portable bulbs they used to for late night football games. _What on earth?!_

Johann seemed to mirror Tony’s sentiments, as a look of utter confusion contorted his face.

“IT’S PAYBACK TIME MOTHERFUCKERS” He could just about make out the tone of Elektra’s voice as she ran in and threw some more paint at the football players from her water pistol. Others followed with battle cries and hit the boys as they tried to run for cover.

 Tony watched with glee, and cursed his lack of arms, when someone threw him his super soaker 7.

“Oi Stark, you gonna join in or what?” Natasha and Clint were standing in front of him, wearing military style clothing with camouflage on their faces, various tubes of paint strapped to their bodies and huge water pistols strapped to their backs.

“Hell yeah I am.” He said, getting up and shooting the first person he saw-which happened to be Hank McCoy. He promptly ran into the lake. What a wimp. Tony looked around him to see all the members of Rainbow Dorm armed with the same water pistols and the other domestic weaponry they’d used to clean their house after it had been graffitied. Elektra and Maria were chasing Gunther, who ran past a Carol, Jess, Reed and Sue firing at Hank (the other Hank). Merciless, Darcy and Pepper dragged McCoy out of the lake (poor sod couldn’t swim) and doused him in a good helping of paint until the boy’s clothes were soaked. The fight continued for another 15 minutes, with the five despicable members of the football team successfully tied up and dragged to the centre of the clearing, completely doused in paint.

Darcy put her gun in the air. “WE ARE RAINBOW DORM, AND WE WILL _NOT_ STAND FOR DISCRIMINATION.” She said, smiling. “And you just got Gay’d.” 


	19. Requiem for a rainbow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY HEY LISTEN. So I've been REALLY sick lately, so this chapter is honestly not as good as the others. But it was also quite difficult to write if I'm honest.  
> Oh yes I've changed my name again, I do apologise. The reasons shall remain publicly unknown.  
> Basically I'm just looking forward to writing the next chapter, so for now, be happy my friends~  
> NOW YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS~ and Sorceress_Supreme-COME BACK, DO NOT STALK AWAY!

“So….paint.”

“Yup.”

“You went for paint.”

“We went Canadian.”

“Darcy that was not in any way passive aggressive.”

Tony just shook his head in disbelief. They had come back to Rainbow Dorm where free hot chocolate was heartily given out after everyone took in turns to have their well-deserved showers.  Johann and the douche crew had been dumped back at the door of their dorm, and then the 90s grunge kids threw stale pizza at them. 

“So was that why you guys were being so mean to me-you could’ve just told me y’know.”

“Yeah but then you wouldn’t have gone. This was our way of saying thank you.” Elektra said, giving Tony’s forehead a very passionate kiss. He was completely surrounded as his various companions practically crowded his presence on the sofa.

“You guys really are the limit-first you hack into my computer, now this? What else are you hiding from me?!”  He said, pouting.

“Yeah guys we do owe him an explanation.” Rhodey said, looking to the other girls.

“Well it was Carol’s idea.”

“Yeah but Sue helped too!”

“Don’t forget our Iron Lady Pepper.”

“Yeah but Elektra came up with the-“

“No I helped with that-“

Tony looked helplessly as the babble around him escalated to full scale argument, then to the concentration of football players hibernating in the other corner of the room. Finally Rhodey took the initiative and sharply whistled to get their attention.

“Why don’t we all explain it to him, sound good?” He said, and the smiled at the nods. They decided the first person to explain would be Carol, and soon the entire story began to unravel.

_Lunchtime, the previous day_

The remainder of Rainbow Dorm were sat in thought, having made the team decision to skip their afternoon classes. There was no doubt that they were all extremely annoyed with Johann’s “speech”, but even more so with Steve’s declaration. Something had to be done.

The solution, so it seemed, arrived a little while later in the form of Thor Odinson, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm.

“MY FRIENDS, I COME BEARING GIFTS OF GREAT IMPORTANCE.” Came the familiarly loud voice of their favourite Nord.

Jane ran to the door,  and was immediately engulfed in a large, almost bone crushing hug. “My fair lady Jane, I was afraid that some of your anger would be directed at me.”

“Why? You haven’t done anything wrong-it’s Johann and Steve we’re angry with! What I wouldn’t do to shove some sulphuric acid up their-“

“Thor! How lovely to see you! And Ben! Oh you brought Alicia along too!” Pepper greeted the visitors as everyone winced at Jane’s comment-sulphuric acid is a powerful corrosive after all. Tucked under Ben’s large arm was the petite frame of Alicia Masters, and he gently released her as Pepper took her hand and lead her to the living room. Her eyes were a beautiful mocha brown, and they stared ahead, unmoving and unseeing.  Elektra immediately moved up; she knew from experience how to handle her. Both she and Maria had only heard of the single other inbred blind student on campus, and were both itching to meet her. Where Maria had developed her other senses, making her practically invincible, Alicia was lost in the world, and Elektra wanted to change that.

Thor took the single couch in the corner, with Jane still on his lap, which left Johnny with nowhere to sit. That was, until Bucky pulled Rhodey onto his lap, hence vacating yet another spot on one of their three triple seater couches. There were a few giggles, and they were duly ignored.

“Right Thor, you said you had something to tell us? Shoot away big guy.” Jess said, her face obstructed by the bulky curls Carol’s hair.

“Well actually we all do. Thor buddy, you can go first.”

 “This morning I had asked our dear friend James if he were to permit me to use his laptop as mine is out of use. He did not answer clearly, suffering from the influence ofalcohol. So I simply took the computer and used it as I needed-where I found this.” Thor produced his phone and showed everyone the photo that was on it.

“Oh my god that’s-“

“The picture of dear Steven and Anthony heated in lover’s embrace. I found it on his hard drive, and then I knew it was him who had sent it-but not by his own measure, oh no, under the orders of Johann. This I knew as I found a stack of money in his bedroom once he had left for class. It is rare for any of us to own loose cash, since we use the wondrous invention of the credit card for our transactions. It is a dastardly crime, but I believe he may be innocent yet.” Thor finished.

“So it was Johann. When will that piece of shit stop?”

“Wait till you hear our story.” Johnny exclaimed, eager to tell them.

“Shoot, we’re all ears.” Pepper said, organising all the facts in her head.

“After lunch, Johann went straight home instead of to his afternoon classes-and he didn’t turn up for practice either. So we followed him-me and Johnny that is-and found him by the lakeside-oh yeah Tony and Maria just left, they’re heading to town-anyway, we hid to see what would happen.” Ben started, looked over to Johnny next, who continued the story.

“Yeah and then the two Hanks came along-y’know, one’s kinda dorky with glasses, and the other one’s got weak abs?” The others nodded, albeit a little surprised as Ben’s description. “So Johann says to them “do you have it?” and Pym gets out this phone-and we know that it’s Steve’s, because he has a Superman case, cuz he’s like crazy about comics. Yeah anyway we know it’s Steve’s phone, and for some reason Johann wanted it-then he says something about “it must be tonight” and they’re apparently going to meet at the river an-“

“Long story short, we think Johann is going to pretend to be Steve to get Tony to come out, and then they’re going to do something. And by the tank of kerosene we saw earlier, we’re not so sure it’s going to be a good something.”

Sue went white as a sheet, “K-kerosene? They’re going to set him on fire?”

“Why would he…okay this is just getting ridiculous-this…this is still about the whole power over student body thing isn’t it?” Jess asked, grimacing when he saw Ben’s expression.

“It’s bloody stupid! That doesn’t even happen-“

“We should probably mention that Johann saw a psychiatrist-apparently his case was too much even for therapy-during high school-that was the term Steve became vice captain and we became one of the most well-known teams in the whole damn state-anyway, he got so annoyed that he ended up severely wounding his psychiatrist, and since then he’s never been taken back.” Ben said, inducing a rather empty silence in the room.

“I heard about that.” Said Rhodey, now completely wrapped up in Bucky’s arms.

“And you didn’t care to mention it like, ever?” Sue said, raising her eyebrows.

“It was a rumour! I didn’t think it was _true_.”

“Same here.” Said Bucky, “How come he told you?”

“Our moms were close.” Ben grimaced.

“Naw I heard about that too, I thought it was a pile of bullcrap.” Sam said.

“It’s true, every word.” Ben said, “His mom was distraught, but then again she was almost as heartless as he was. You remember his dad, right Sam?”

Said boy made a gagging noise, “God, you didn’t need to look hard to see where his malice came from. The whole reason he’s like this is because of what his dad used to tell him-“be the most powerful” “control everyone else” Just the typical comments of a supportive parent.”

“Bloody fucking hell. Okay we need to tell Tony before this gets out of hand-“ Darcy was interrupted by the sound of the door being opened.

“Oh my god guys…have you seen this!?” It was Clint, back from his Greek literature class. Bruce, who had been so quiet they had originally thought he was fast asleep, rushed out, followed by a few others. Clint was in the corridor, holding a body in his arms.

He walked past the looks of shock and horror and laid the body on the soon vacated couch. It was Charles Xavier, bloody and beaten up, glass shards once again adorning his body, but their source was nowhere to be found.

“Jeeze you’d think they’d get a little fucking originality.”

“Charles! Is Charles here? I must see him!” Another frantic voice entered the halls of Rainbow Dorm, and Peggy Carter ran in. She ran over to Charles’ side, kneeling at his body. “Oh Charles, what have they done to you?”

“Hey to you too Peggy.” Darcy said, in an unusually melancholy tone.

“Darcy! Oh my gosh I am so sorry I haven’t called since the party! I meant to, I really did!”

“Guys! Leave the fight for later! We have a man down! Jane-your medic kit. NOW.”

Jane ran to get her supplies, and immediately started to patch Charles up. Darcy, Sue, Carol and Elektra helped her, and soon the living room resembled an overcrowded operating theatre. A traumatising hour later they finished, and sat around Charles’ lifeless body.

“Okay we are going to need a course of action. This has gone on for far too long-I know we’ve said that many times, I know we’ve had a shit day, but we need to put an end to this discrimination. It was Charles this time, it might be Tony tonight-who knows what else he’s going to do. We know what he’s capable of-we’re all the same, we all have the resources to wreak havoc if we want to, but only someone as cold and desolate as Johann Schmidt would ever dare to do something like this. We need a solution guys, the end all solution.”  Carol proclaimed, earning a very sloppy kiss from her girlfriend.

“I believe I may already have that covered.” Darcy said, holding a super soaker in one hand and a can of paint in the other.

 “So after that we made all the arrangements, Thor, Ben and Johnny went with Johann to re-assure him of their allegiance. Bucky and Sam stayed with us to help prepare. We were lucky Maria lead you out-she wasn’t in on it, but she was informed to keep you out for a prolonged amount of time. Then we just waited for you to get back-we were expecting Erik to stop by, so we knew that Charles would be safe-“

“Oh yeah Charles woke up ages before you came, but we told him he had to pretend to be unconscious-both for you and for Erik. Sorry buddy, but we wanted to make sure you were right for our little Charly here.” Darcy said, winking at the bulky German. Erik smiled, “I would gladly go through it again if it meant I could earn the trust and honour of Charles’ friends.” He said. Charles giggled, earning many “awws” from around the room. And also instigated a sharp pang of envy into Tony’s gut, but he ignored it.

“Well guys, I honestly couldn’t ask for a better set of friends. Seriously, the fact that you did so much for me, I’m honoured.” He said,

“Yeah yeah we know, but I’m not finished!” Carol met Pepper’s eyes, “There is one last element to our complex plan-“

“It wasn’t that complex-“

“Shut up Clint.”

“Guys! Anyway, Thor texted us when they started to make a move, so we could plan our way down there. Bucky and Sam got the portable lights from the astro, and we decided to soak them in paint. But the last thing we did was ask Peggy to do a little…persuasion. Speaking of which she should be arriving right about…” The doorbell rang just as Carol placed the last word. “Now.”

Tony raised his eyebrow, when Sue-the honorary welcoming service- went to the door. He heard Peggy’s voice filter through, the sound of 3 sets of footsteps. The others smiled at him, knowing smiles. He _hated_ secrets-hadn’t they tortured him enough?

Sue and Peggy walked in with their arms linked, but Peggy broke their chain as soon as she saw Darcy, diving into the other girl’s lap in a most undignified manner. But it didn’t matter, because after all, love is love no matter who it’s between.

But the third person in question still had not emerged, and Tony was now beginning to get anxious, until he heard the heavy footfalls enter the living room…

“Hello Tony.” 


	20. So long, and thanks for all the gay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LAST CHAPTER EVER YOU GUYS.  
> I hope it doesn't suck! I will be reviewing it later when I get a chance, but I really wanted to finish this ^^  
> SO, I hate sentimentalities so thank you for reading, I really enjoyed writing this! I hope you all enjoyed reading it.  
> Thanks to every single one of you who kudos'd, commented & bookmarked this fic! If you liked this, please be sure to check out my other works (well if you wan to lol this is probably the best one I have written so far).  
> I suck at these sort of parting things. I hate saying goodbye, so I shall simply say Good day.
> 
> Yeah there's like no dialogue in this...it's just a prose chappie.

Months had passed since what everyone had dubbed the rainbow rebellion. Soon after, Johann Schmidt had been expelled from the university, never to be seen or heard from again (or so they hoped). The day after the paint incident, Johann had limped onto campus, dried paint caked in his hair and covering his body, now stuck with other various paraphernalia. Their aim had been excellent, managing to avoid key orifices and eyes.  
The minute he'd caught sight of Tony, he'd ran and tried to lunge at the boy, a shaky growl escaping from his mouth, but with all the extra weight on his body he ended up falling flat on his face, landing conveniently at director Fury's feet, who had proceeded to kick him off campus. It was a welcome change-and thankfully Gunther was soon to follow.

  
But perhaps the best change was the one between him and Steve. The “backstabbing bastard” had been effectively persuaded by Peggy to talk to his parents in a rational and diplomatic way (of which she was a master) in order to tell them that this was his final choice, that it didn’t matter if they cut him out of the business because he’d never planned on inheriting it anyway. But it must be done over a Skype call, since there was less potential for injury via Ian. Ah the brilliance of technology.

As it turned out he didn't even need to, because his mother had got there first. Sarah Rogers had turned up the same weekend Howard and Maria had been invited to stay. Steve had temporarily moved into Tony's room to officially meet his parents, now that they were officially out and all (Jean Grey had mysteriously disappeared after a “legal incident”. Tony distinctly suspects Jarvis, Howard and Maria had something to do with it.)

The look of surprise that crossed their face when she arrived was priceless, and she had proceeded to apologise profusely for ruining their weekend.  
But then Sarah had explained that Ian had been arrested for corruption, bribery and child abuse (as alleged by Sarah and all of Rogers’ business associates themselves). A massive weight seemed to have been lifted off her shoulders as she explained how she was currently in the process of a long awaited divorce. Which was why dear Raphael was there-her new Spanish masseuse turned boyfriend.  
Steve didn't seem fazed; he was happy for his mother, and glad that she was finally content (if the noises coming from her bedroom were anything to go by. That made Steve more than a little uncomfortable. Tony found it hilarious)  
Sarah had assured him she was nothing but proud of him, and that he was free to choose who he loved. 18 years of apologies came crashing down, and Sarah regretted every moment she watched Ian’s hand rise above his head and aim at their little son.

Luckily the Rogers oil Corp went to her, and now she had the freedom to start the fashion brand she'd always wanted to. Consequently, Maria had become her new best friend-a fact which both sons were very pleased about. Well, until the word "marriage" was mentioned, at which point they had elected to leave.  
Howard had hit it off extremely well with Steve, securing his approval (and how could he not, Steve was an angel). Speaking of which, the ridiculous blonde hadn't stopped apologising since their official reconciliation (Tony guessed apologising was a Rogers' family trait...from his motger's side anyway).Every day he would tell Tony how sorry was, and that Tony deserved better. It drove the boy mad until he ended up breaking their kitchen island trying to "shut Steve up".

  
Elektra and Darcy insisted Tony bought them a new one.  
And that wasn't the only new arrangement that had to be made. Erik, Ben, Johnny, Steve, Sam, Bucky and Thor were just a few amongst many who wanted to move into Rainbow Dorm. There were a few bedrooms left, but not enough for them all.

Well, that is to say Tony didn’t really notice that some of them had already moved in. Peggy and Darcy had the mutual decision and soon Peggy’s neat little vintage treasures littered the house. Steve had taken the bold decision to just turn up on the doorstep with all his bags packed and ready to move in; hoping Tony would take him (which, of course, he would). Erik was desperate to stay with Charles, which instigated a few sceptical whispers through the house, but Erik was determined to prove himself (plus Charles really didn’t want him to go). And as it happened, he was a genuinely nice guy. He was caring, clever and he could cook! Which only added to their repertoire of already brilliant chefs. Plus he made Charles happy, and now that Erik was taking Genetics too, they would be spending far more time together. Honestly, most of the time Tony thought they were like an old married couple. Which got Tony thinking about who out of Charles & Erik, Elektra & Maria, or Bruce & Clint would get married first.

(In the end it was actually Bucky and Rhodey, to which Tony had apparently been completely oblivious of. Of course when he found out the truth, he had just laughed and congratulated his dear old friend on “joining the gay side.” Steve was equally as happy for Bucky, and stated be always knew his friend wasn't that into girls. How could he be, when he had a Rhodey to sleep next to at night?) 

The final decision was that those who were originally in Jock Park would stay there, back to the Storm House, which now also consisted of Reed Richards and Johnny’s new girlfriend Wanda Maximoff. Thor, Sam and Brunnhilde would join them, because Jane said she could handle meeting her boyfriend once every so often (and Thor spent most nights at the dorm anyway). It was a perfect compromise for a perfect life.

Class was normal, and Tony had regained his stream of admiring fans and followers at lunch. The two Hanks and James Howlett had given them heartfelt apologies, and vowed to be their allies. There was still a “football team” table, and it was only then that Tony had realised that they hadn’t played a single game since the beginning of the year.

When asked, the boys had just laughed and said that Johann had been so caught up trying to get rid of Tony (and he’d already bribed the coach to quit) that he hadn’t bothered entering them into the University league. 

So all in all life became…well, peaceful. As life had supposed to be. The students lived in perfect harmony, and Rainbow Dorm wasn’t the only all accepting dorm as others began to proclaim their support. It was beautiful, and Tony’s heart filled with pride as he realised _he’d_ instigated it. Just like Maria had told him all along.

They gained members, they lost members, but the original founders stayed until the very last day of university, and remained the best of friends for the rest of their lives.

Because the moral of this story isn’t just about good over evil or “being gay”; it’s about basic human friendship and acceptance. Power is a concept that will only create conflict, but love is an influence that is necessary to life.  It may take years-even decades- for people to formally accept Maria’s change, or the love between Steve and Tony, but even if we can change just one person’s mind-or even that of the majority of a student body-then we are already making a difference. The main difference.  The End.”

Peter Stark-Rogers put down the large leather bound book to regard his audience. It was his first year in SHIELD University as an Astrophysics minor, and of course he would have to stay in the famous university accommodation of his fathers, which he now shared with Theodore “Teddy” Murdock, William “Wiccan” Potts-Romanov, Madeline Barnes, Kate Odinson and Wade Xavier-Lehnsherr.  Dean Fury was still in charge, accompanied with his trusty minions Professors Hill and Coulson, and Peter was looking forward to a good year.

Wade was his sole audience today, and the boy smiled as Peter finished his story, perfectly mirroring that of his father’s. He had stormy grey eyes like his father whilst Peter had the baby blues of his father, thanks to the DNA fusion method Charles and Erik had perfected. They had been childhood best friends, growing up with the stories of the amazing university life their fathers had lead.

 “They sure made some great memories.” He mumbled, thinking back, and Wade hummed in agreement next to him, looking at one particular photo of Elektra comparing Erik and Steve’s abs. These were followed by tons of valentine’s day pictures, including shots of their own parents in embrace.

Wade smiled and wrapped his arms around the smaller boy’s waist. “And we’ll make some wonderful memories too”. He whispered, securing their lips. Peter reciprocated enthusiastically, tracing the lettering of the large leather book with his fingertips as they began to embark on their own adventure riding on the legacy of the generation before them, all started by one bodacious group of people living in an old brick house, determined to try and change the world. 


End file.
